Britain will be left “bobbing around helplessly in the mid-Atlantic” without influence over Brussels or Washington if the Conservatives allow an exit from the European Union, Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, has said.
The Liberal Democrat leader questioned whether the US president would even pick up the phone to the UK prime minister if the country cannot “punch above its weight in the EU”. He called on his coalition partners to be honest about the consequences of their Eurosceptic demands as they toughen their anti-EU rhetoric in the face of pressure from the UK Independence party.
At his monthly press conference, Clegg said: “I believe in reform. I do not believe in exit. The Conservatives are embarked on a strategy which has only one final destination, which is leaving the EU altogether.”
Clegg issued the warning as David Cameron prepares to demand more concessions from the EU about restricting immigration, potentially involving a cap on low-skilled workers. This has already been rejected by José Manuel Barroso, the outgoing president of the European commission, who pleaded with the UK not to lose its friends in Europe.
Following reports over the weekend that Cameron is considering a cap on national insurance numbers issued to low-skilled migrants, Clegg said he does not back the idea floated by the Conservatives, as it was a founding principle of the EU that people should be able to move freely.
By aiming for such unachievable reforms, the prime minister is “edging ever closer towards the exit door”, the deputy prime minister said.
“The Tory party is being pushed, day by day, week by week, by their right wing, because of their panic about Ukip, to the exit. That is where this all ends up.”
Clegg said the Conservatives are in such “a total lather about Ukip” that they are even “bizarrely tearing up their own homework” as their own former prime minister Margaret Thatcher oversaw the formation of the common market.
He called on Cameron to be honest about where the party was heading instead of “constantly lurching, thrashing around” with new eye-catching policy initiatives designed to win back people who are voting for Ukip.
However, Clegg welcomed Barroso’s acknowledgement that there could be changes to stop abuses of free movement, saying it was the first such acknowledgement from the commission. He said closing a loophole that means workers can circumvent transitional controls by saying they are self-employed would be “top of his list” of changes.
Clegg has been one of the strongest defenders of Britain’s place in the EU, taking on Nigel Farage in a television debate about the issue before the European elections in May that saw the Liberal Democrats come fifth and Ukip top the polls.
