Margaret Thatcher tendency to override collegiate opinion, contributed to discontent within her party. Thatcher removed Geoffrey Howe as Foreign Secretary in July 1989 after he and Lawson had forced her to agree to a plan for Britain to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). Britain joined the ERM in October 1990. On 1 November 1990, Howe, by then the last remaining member of Thatcher's original 1979 cabinet, resigned from his position as Deputy Prime Minister, ostensibly over her open hostility to moves towards European Monetary Union. In his resignation speech on 13 November, Howe commented on Thatcher's openly dismissive attitude to
Diana Gould – Margaret Thatcher exchange the Falklands, but Thatcher avoided repeating that it had not. She said the full facts would be published in about 30 years, adding: "I think it could only be in Britain that a Prime Minister was accused of sinking an enemy ship that was a danger to our navy, when my main motive was to protect the boys in our navy." Gould suggested the sinking had put an end to a Peruvian peace proposal, but according to Thatcher, the proposal had not arrived in London until after the sinking. At several points the women clearly became irritated with one another.