Margaret Thatcher died of a stroke yesterday aged 87, uniting Malta’s 1980s political leaders in praise of her character if not all her policies.

President Emeritus Eddie Fenech Adami described the former British Prime Minister as “a person who stood by her own beliefs. People admired that, even if they didn’t agree with her”.

“After Churchill she was the person who best symbolises the indomitable spirit of the British people,” said former Labour Prime Minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, who stressed that he disagreed with many of her policies.

Baroness Thatcher became Britain’s first woman Prime Minister in 1979. She led the Conservative Government until her resignation in 1990.

As the Prime Minister responsible for weakening trade unions and privatising state industries, she remained a divisive figure in the UK until the end.

“She was an example of how one could deal with trade unions without infringing on their rights but by standing up to them,” said Dr Fenech Adami, stressing that he always considered unions to be an important part of the democratic process.

But for Dr Mifsud Bonnici, “her record on industrial relations was very bad. She did not help British industry recover to its position of power from before the war”.

Her supporters argue that her reforms to Britain’s inefficient economy were necessary to restore national prosperity.

Critics counter that working class communities were devastated by widespread job losses and the suppression of protests using sometimes brutal police tactics is not forgotten in Britain’s former industrial heartlands.

As leader of the Nationalist opposition and later as Prime Minister (1987-1996), Dr Fenech Adami met Baroness Thatcher several times.

He recalled a “skirmish” he had with her when she disagreed with concerns he raised about climate change during a Commonwealth meeting.

“She remarked that I was talking ‘almost nonsense’. I said: ‘Did I hear you well, madam? It seems you don’t understand the legal concepts.’

“Her retort was ‘I’m a solicitor.’ I said some solicitors do not understand legal concepts... it showed her character. If there was something she disagreed with she would let you know.”

Unlike Dr Fenech Adami, Baroness Thatcher was a Eurosceptic who supported the single market but was wary of the creation of a “European super-state”.

Dr Fenech Adami’s view is that “she didn’t quite appreciate what the EU was all about”.

However, on this issue, Dr Mifsud Bonnici was much more supportive of the “Iron Lady”.

As chairman of the Campaign for National Independence (CNI), a movement opposed to EU membership, Dr Mifsud Bonnici had invited Baroness Thatcher to address activists ahead of the 2003 EU referendum.

The former Labour Prime Minister (1984-1987) said ill-health prevented Baroness Thatcher from visiting. However, reports from that time suggested that grassroots opposition to her visit due to her support for Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in the 1980s played a role.

“She was very sympathetic to our opposition to the EU. She could not tolerate Great Britain being subservient to the dictats of Brussels,” Dr Mifsud Bonnici said.

“History proved her right. The EU has not helped Malta to grow up, we are dependent on others.”

Maltese citizen and former British soldier Martin Scicluna worked under Baroness Thatcher as a civil servant in the UK Ministry of Defence.

From 1985 to 1989 he worked in the Northern Ireland Policy Division and once had to personally brief the Prime Minister after a bombing which killed off-duty soldiers.

“She was a very strong advocate of not giving into the IRA, which helped the morale of those working at the MOD,” he said.

Her ruthless attitude towards Republican dissidents in Northern Ireland, epitomised by her brutal inflexibility towards imprisoned hunger strikers in 1981, made her even more divisive in Northern Ireland than she was elsewhere in the UK.

Her fierce determination was evidenced again in 1982, when she dispatched a naval task force to retake the Falkland Islands thousands of miles away after they were invaded by Argentinian forces.

The British retook the remote Overseas Territory after a bloody 74-day war, giving Baroness Thatcher a huge boost in popularity.

“The Falklands changed everything. Before then she was in danger of being a one-Parliament Prime Minister. The Falklands raised morale and restored national pride in a country that had reached rock bottom,” said Mr Scicluna.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici acknowledged that the Falklands War united the British people but he backs Argentinian claims to the islands.

“The sooner Britain gets itself out of these colonial precincts the better,” he said.

Now retired in Malta, Mr Scicluna echoed Dr Mifsud Bonnici by describing the Iron Lady as the “greatest British Prime Minister since Churchill”.

“She was a great leader but very divisive. She was loved and hated in equal measure and the further north you went, the more she was hated.”

Were the criticisms of her treatment of the working class justified?

“You could say yes. She used the weapon of unemployment to bring the trade unions to heel.

“Whole areas were devastated and it is arguable whether some of her changes were necessary,” said Mr Scicluna.

All three men agreed that Baroness Thatcher respected Malta.

“She looked at Malta as a former British colony,” said Dr Fenech Adami.

“But I would say she looked at us with some admiration, in the sense that we made it all on our own.”

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.