"Stand Down Margaret" is a song by English ska and new wave band the Beat, released as a double A-side single with "Best Friend" in August 1980.

[5]The song was inspired by the 1978 novel The Third World War by the Australian-born British soldier John Hackett, where "he postulated that the first nuclear bomb would go off above Winson Green Prison", which was right above the hospital where Wakeling was born and also above the pub where the Beat formed.

[3] The lyrics "how can it work in this all white law" was written by Andy Cox and alludes to Thatcher's cabinet ministers Geoffrey Howe and William Whitelaw.

[7] "Stand Down Margaret" was first released on the band's debut studio album I Just Can't Stop It in May 1980 as part of a mash with "Whine and Grine", written by Prince Buster.

[7] Reviewing the song at the time for Record Mirror, Robin Smith wrote "it washes over me not making the slightest impression on my ear drums.

[10] Left-wing singer-songwriter Billy Bragg said that he first heard "Whine and Grine/Stand Down Margaret" on The Old Grey Whistle Test and thought ""this is a nice reggae song."

In it, he said he "adored" the Beat despite being an "ardent Thatcherite" and "assumed that everyone in Britain admired Mrs Thatcher in much the same awestruck terms as he did so when it came to [the target of 'Stand Down Margaret']... the penny never really dropped.

When the band started the song live on air, they took off their jackets to reveal t-shirts with "Margaret Thatcher as a robot with an nuclear explosion behind her".