put under pressure by the exigencies of its most powerful social groups

Lamont thus inherited Britain's place in the EMS-ERM fixed exchange system and tried to make the best of it, seeing it also as a bulwark for pushing down Britain's inflation rate

John Major, Britain's prime minister [...] committed his government to shunning 'the soft option, the devaluer's option that would be a betrayal of our future and our children's future'. It was the signal speculators needed, with George Soros famously ahead of the pack, to take the British government to the cleaner's: a once-in-a-century opportunity to profit from a commitment to an exchange rate with the Deutsche Mark that the Bundesbank had signalled it would not defend. [...]

the European Union remained capable of promoting planification, code for looking after large French companies through bailouts

To fill this institutional lacuna, the Maastricht Treaty and its successor treaties created a panoply of non-credible rules to constrain states.

To fill this institutional lacuna, the Maastricht Treaty and its successor treaties created a panoply of non-credible rules to constrain states.

Given that the purpose of going through the palaver of re-creating a lost currency is to devalue it vis-a-vis the currency in people's hip pockets, leaving the euro is tantamount to announcing a major devaluation a year before it happens.