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The Westland affair in 1985–86 was an episode in which Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and her Secretary of State for Defence, Michael Heseltine, went public over a cabinet dispute with questions raised about whether the conventions of cabinet government were being observed and about the integrity of senior politicians.
The argument was over the future of Westland Helicopters, Britain's last helicopter manufacturer, which was to be the subject of a rescue bid. The Defence Secretary, Heseltine, favoured a European solution, integrating Westland with a consortium including British Aerospace (BAe), Italian (Agusta) and French companies. Thatcher and Trade and Industry Secretary Leon Brittan, while ostensibly maintaining a neutral stance, wanted to see Westland merge with Sikorsky, an American company.
Heseltine refused to accept Thatcher's choice and claimed that Thatcher had refused to allow a free ministerial discussion of the matter, even suggesting that she had lied about cancelling a scheduled meeting. In January 1986, when he was ordered to cease campaigning for his European consortium, he resigned and walked out of a Cabinet meeting. Brittan was then forced to resign for having ordered the leaking to the press of a confidential legal letter critical of Heseltine, and for his lack of candour to the House of Commons about his efforts to persuade BAe to withdraw from Heseltine's consortium.
Thatcher's survival as Prime Minister briefly appeared in question, but she rode out the crisis. The episode nonetheless was an embarrassment to the Conservative Thatcher government and undermined her reputation.[1]