Margaret Thatcher was no friend to the working class, no ally to the Irish, and certainly no stranger to brutality.
She crushed the miners, gutted public services, and made it very clear that if you were poor in Britain, you were on your own.
Across the water, she showed no mercy to the North of Ireland, letting hunger strikers die rather than acknowledge their political status, overseeing the violent militarisation of Belfast’s streets, and treating Irish suffering as nothing more than an inconvenience to British rule.
She was ruthless, uncompromising, and had the blood of entire communities on her hands.
But even she wouldn’t arm Israel.
In 1982, after Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, Thatcher’s government placed an arms embargo on Israel.
Now, let’s not pretend this was some grand moral awakening. She was more than happy to sell arms elsewhere and never lost sleep over British-backed violence in other parts of the world.
But in this case, she saw the danger. She understood that flooding an already volatile region with more weapons wouldn’t bring stability, and, crucially, she was willing to act on it.
Fast forward to today, and that last shred of British restraint has vanished.
The UK now openly arms Israel as it turns Gaza into rubble. There’s no embargo, no second-guessing, no strategic pause to ask if this might be a step too far. Westminster is all in. No matter the cost.
So what’s changed? Not Britain’s love for war, that’s for sure. But the days of even pretending to maintain balance, diplomacy, or international credibility are long gone. Thatcher, for all her cruelty, at least recognised the need for limits.
Today’s British government? They don’t have any.
Domesticky 
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