John Major's tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom began on 28 November 1990 when he accepted an invitation from Queen Elizabeth II to form a government, succeeding Margaret Thatcher, and ended on 2 May 1997 upon his resignation.

As prime minister, Major created the Citizen's Charter, removed the Poll Tax and replaced it with the Council Tax, committed British troops to the Gulf War, took charge of the UK's negotiations over the Maastricht Treaty of the European Union (EU),[1] led the country during the early 1990s economic crisis, withdrew the pound from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (a day which came to be known as Black Wednesday), promoted the socially conservative back to basics campaign, passed further reforms to education and criminal justice, privatised the railways and coal industry, and also played a pivotal role in creating peace in Northern Ireland.

[3] Major sought to rebuild public trust in the Conservatives following a series of scandals, including the events of Black Wednesday in 1992,[4][5] through campaigning on the strength of the economic recovery following the early 1990s recession, but faced divisions within the party over the UK's membership of the European Union.

[91][92][93] Major's approach stood in contrast to the Labour Party's much slicker campaign, most notably a US-style political rally in Sheffield which was widely criticised as being overly bombastic and prematurely triumphalist.

[137] Major sought to create a less cumbersome, more agile labour market that could compete more effectively in the new global economy, hence his insistence in the Maastricht negotiations on gaining opt-outs from EU social policies which were seen as interfering with this process.

[142] On 16 September 1992, the UK was forced to exit the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), a day which would come to be known as 'Black Wednesday', with billions of pounds wasted in a futile attempt to defend the value of sterling.

[201] The rise in the number of single mothers was also touted as evidence of moral decay in society by many Conservatives, and the Child Support Agency was created to chase absentee fathers failing to financially contribute to their children's upbringing.

[257][258] Controversy was also engendered after attempts by Health Secretary Virginia Bottomley to streamline London's hospitals, which would have meant closing the historic St Bartholomew's; after a public outcry the plans were significantly scaled back.

[265][266] A huge cattle slaughter programme was introduced in a bid to restore faith in Britain's beef industry, but the EU ban remained in place, and was later extended to cover various bovine-derivative products as well.

[292] Despite being opposed to devolution, Major did agree to devolve some additional powers to the Scotland Office and the Scottish Grand Committee in 1993,[292][293] as well taking the symbolic step of returning the Stone of Scone to Edinburgh in 1996.

[305] The conflict visited Major personally soon after taking office, when in February 1991 the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) fired a mortar at 10 Downing Street during a Cabinet meeting, almost killing him.

[311][312][313] In March 1991 tentative peace talks began involving the main 'constitutional' parties of Northern Ireland (i.e. those who adopted purely democratic means, thereby excluding Gerry Adams's Sinn Féin which supported the IRA's use of violence).

[319][313] Thinking within Republican circles had been evolving in the 1980s, with the clear failure of the 'armed struggle' to achieve a united Ireland and the increasing electoral success of Sinn Féin indicating that their aims could perhaps be better realised politically.

[343][344] Talks also foundered over arms decommissioning, with the issue being referred to George J. Mitchell (United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland), resulting in the 'Mitchell Principles', which reiterated that all paramilitaries should disarm.

[352] However, Major's dedication to the peace process was vital in establishing the building blocks which led to the Good Friday Agreement under his successor Tony Blair in 1998, which finally brought an end to 'the Troubles'.

[356][357][358][36] To Major's dismay the tabloid press gleefully latched onto the latter interpretation, as a seemingly endless series of sexual and financial scandals (given the catch-all term 'sleaze') hit the party over the subsequent years, starting with National Heritage Secretary David Mellor, who was forced to resign in September 1992 after allegations of an affair.

[359][360] Several such scandals centred on supposed Conservative moral hypocrisy, such as Tim Yeo, Minister for the Environment and Countryside, who had fathered an illegitimate child despite having publicly lambasted single mothers and broken families, and MPs such as Michael Brown and Jerry Hayes who were alleged to have conducted homosexual relationships with then underage men;[361] as well as alleged corruption in the Conservative Party, as with the abuse of the 'Right to buy' housing scheme by millionaire MP Alan Duncan,[362] and the 'Homes for votes scandal' in Conservative-controlled Westminster City Council.

[364][365] In addition to the above one-off scandals, many of which were quickly forgotten, there were several on-going 'sleaze'-related stories such as 'Arms-to-Iraq', which was an enquiry into how government ministers, including Alan Clark,[nb 9] had encouraged a business called Matrix Churchill to supply arms-manufacturing machinery to Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War of the 1980s, in breach of the official arms embargo.

[367] It was alleged that senior ministers had, on legal advice, attempted to withhold evidence of this official connivance via the use of public interest immunity certificates when the directors of Matrix Churchill were put on trial for breaking the embargo.

He wrote that he took a stern line against financial impropriety, but was angered at the way in which a host of scandals, many of them petty sexual misdemeanours by a small number of MPs, were exploited by the press and Opposition for political advantage.

"[388] Following his 1992 election victory Major's fortunes took a turn for a worse, with the ignominy of 'Black Wednesday' and the bruising battles to pass the Maastricht Treaty (see § Europe, below) exposing the increasingly acrimonious divisions within the Conservative Party.

[390][165] Critics from all corners were also attacking his 'consensus' approach to politics, with Norman Lamont, after being sacked as Chancellor delivering a stinging critique of Major's government in the House of Commons on 9 June 1993, stating that it "gives the impression of being in office but not in power.

[416][417][418] Labour remained far ahead in the opinion polls as the general election loomed, despite the economic boom and swift fall in unemployment that had followed the end of the early 1990s recession (later dubbed a 'voteless recovery' for the Tories).

[463] He also sought to reach out to areas traditionally neglected by Britain, for instance in 1992 he became the first British Prime Minister in 50 years to visit South America, going to Colombia and attending the Earth Summit in Brazil.

[464][465] Despite the active foreign policy, Major often found himself frustrated with the ostentatious summits he was compelled to attend, viewing many of them as "gilt-edged boondoggles" where he was obliged to "listen to interminable speeches before signing up to pre-cooked conclusions much longer on verbiage than action.

Tensions between the constituent republics of Yugoslavia had been building since the death of President Josip Broz Tito in 1980, exacerbated by the political uncertainty caused by the collapse of Communism across Eastern Europe in the period 1989–91.

[540] Major discussed the worsening crisis at a Cobra meeting held in August 1992, where Britain's top military advisers stated that only an enormous 400,000-strong troop deployment would have any kind of decisive effect.

[562] There were tensions in the relationship from the outset, when it emerged that some (fairly low-level) Conservative figures had flown to America in 1992 to support Bush's re-election campaign, as well as offering to dig up 'dirt' on Clinton stemming from his student days at Oxford University in the late 1960s.

[563][564] Further tensions arose over the response to the ongoing conflicts in Bosnia and Northern Ireland, with Major incensed when Clinton gave the green-light for a visit to the States by Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams.

[588] Major's Premiership coincided with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, which saw the emergence of 15 newly independent states, several of which were engaged in violent conflicts with internal separatist elements, against a background of serious economic dislocation caused by an at times chaotic transition to capitalism.