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Black Wednesday: Thirty Years On

POLITICAL INSIGHT • SEPTEMBER 2022 W hen the definitive history of recent decades in British politics comes to be written, Wednesday, 16 September 1992 will likely be a standout date. That day – dubbed ‘Black Wednesday’ – Britain was forced to withdraw from the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) in catastrophic and humiliating circumstances after a collapse in sterling. It was a moment that appeared to symbolise the country’s struggling economic status and uncertain international role. Some observers likened it to the IMF loan crisis of 1976 that, eventually, ushered in Margaret Thatcher. It also struck at the very heart of the UK’s increasingly troubled relations with Europe amidst an increasingly globalised and interconnected world. The dramatic events of this day have reverberated across British politics over the subsequent three decades. In many ways, Black Wednesday was the catalyst for various longer-term political trends within British politics in the ensuing years, including destructive Conservative Party divisions, the emergence of a more Black Wednesday: Thirty Years On