Margaret Thatcher would not have supported Brexit, or having an In-Out referendum on the EU, the former prime minister's closest foreign policy adviser when she was in Number 10 has said.
Lord Charles Powell of Bayswater insisted she had "no truck" with referendums and wanted to change the EU from within.
He told The Observer: "Of course she got fed up with it, but I don't believe that as prime minister she would ever have campaigned to take Britain out of Europe, or had a referendum to allow that to happen.
"She wanted to change Europe, and she set out to change it with great vigour, but I don't believe she would have chosen this way, and she would have avoided getting trapped by the referendum promise.
"She never had any truck with referendums and frequently spoke out against them."