On July 14, 1990 he was forced to resign after an interview published in The Spectator. He had described the proposed European Monetary Union as a
"a German racket designed to take over the whole of Europe" and said that giving up sovereignty to Europe was as bad as giving it up to Adolf Hitler. The interview was illustrated with a cartoon depicting Ridley adding a Hitler moustache to a poster of the German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
