Sir Edward Heath, the prime minister who led Britain into what is now the EU but lost the Conservative Party leadership to Margaret Thatcher, has died. He was 89.
Heath, who governed the UK from 1970-1974, died on Sunday at his home in Salisbury, Wiltshire. He had suffered from a pulmonary embolism two years ago.
A carpenter's son who broke the tradition of blue bloods leading the Conservative Party, he was a born politician whose major achievement was to negotiate Britain's 1973 entry into the European Community. The entry overturned years of resistance both domestically and by France, which had vetoed Britain's entry in 1967.
PHOTO: AP
In 1992, he became Sir Edward, a member of the country's most prestigious order of chivalry, the knights of the Garter.
"He was a man of great integrity and beliefs he held firmly from which he never wavered, and he will be remembered by all who knew him as a political leader of great stature and importance," Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Sunday.
Heath came to power in 1970 pledging to end Britain's long cycle of post-World War II decline, but he was thwarted and, in the end, brought down by militant unions.
In 1974, with Britain reduced to a three-day week by striking coal miners, Heath called an election demanding "who governs?" in a challenge to the unions. He lost to Harold Wilson's Labour Party and lost again when Wilson called an election in October that year.
In all, Heath had taken the Conservatives to defeat by Labour three times since becoming leader of the party in 1965.
The Tories rebelled and in February 1975 another outsider, the grocer's daughter Margaret Thatcher, successfully challenged him for the party leadership.
Despite Thatcher's move to oust him from leading their party, on Sunday she called him a "political giant," "the first modern Conservative leader" and added "we are all in his debt."
Current Tory leader Michael Howard recalled the World War II veteran as a man who always looked to serving his country with pride.
"He will always be remembered as a prime minister who took Britain in to the European Economic Community but his achievements went far beyond that," said Howard, who in May tried to unseat Blair.
Heath remained in the House of Commons as a rank-and file legislator, a bulky, unforgiving figure sniping ineffectively at his right-wing successor.
During Thatcher's 15 years as party leader, his name disappeared from the Conservatives' official folklore. The 1987 election manifesto, for example, described the history of Conservative policy toward Europe without mentioning Heath.
Edward Richard George Heath was born in Broadstairs, a harbor town in the southeast England county of Kent, on July 9, 1916, the elder of two sons.
Encouraged by his mother, Heath began piano lessons as a small boy. It became a lifetime interest.
From his state school, Heath won a scholarship to Oxford University. Like Thatcher, he emerged from Oxford with an upper-class accent. After World War II service as an artillery officer, Heath worked briefly as a civil servant and then as an editor of the Anglican Church Times.
He was elected to the House of Commons for Bexley and Sidcup in 1950, and represented the solidly Conservative south England district through his long political career.
To the end, Heath remained an unusual politician in that he never tried to be liked.
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