23.01.2013 EuroNews The UK in the EU has proved to be a toxic issue for past Conservative leaders. It has loomed large in the downfall of the last two Tory prime ministers – the Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher in 1990 and John Major in ’97. Those relations with the continental cousins are still being divisive. Claire Buchanan, a sales vice-president for a London company, said: “I think what we have seen in the past of couple of years kind of proves the point that it was a good thing we aren’t in the euro zone right now. We would be in real trouble if we hadn’t had the opt out clauses that we have.” Lawyer Gordon Harris said: “It is the most misconceived and frankly facile abdication of responsibility by a prime minister you could possibly imagine. The country has to be in Europe, it will be a ruination for the economy if we do anything else and he (David Cameron) is just pandering to a minority within his own party and to the great detriment of the country. It is a disastrous decision.” Critics in the UK fear that he has started the clock on a long period of “will-they, won’t-they” uncertainty that will do nothing but harm to the UK.