UK State Archives December 31, 2019
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The Foreign Office was cautious. A treaty between Russia and Nato to develop a new relationship might well be needed but the “relationship must not be based on false Russian expectations that she will, one day, become a member of the [Nato] alliance.
“We must not repeat, in the Nato context, the position the EU has got itself into in relation to Turkey – of promising the prospect of entry which it has not intention of honouring. This could be profoundly destabilising.”
Indeed. There’s a lot more, including an idea of John Major’s to rename Heathrow, Churchill Airport. And John Major being told by John Bruton that:
“All governments are unpopular. Given the chance, people would vote against them in a referendum. Therefore avoid referendums. Therefore don’t raise questions which require them, such as the big versus the little states.”
John Major was advised not to accompany Bill Clinton on the US president’s historic visit to Northern Ireland in 1995 over fears he would have to “hide behind potted plants” at an official reception to avoid shaking hands with Gerry Adams, documents show.
Anything strike people?
Interesting to see that in private, ‘shoe tax’ seemingly made no bones of being there to please the greater public. An unusually frank admission of the FG ethos?
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