Nick Clegg has just given a quite astonishing interview to Andrew Marr in which he
accused David Cameron of being incapable of getting a good deal for Britain because of pressures from within the Conservative parliamentary party. When Marr asked him if things would have been
different if Lib Dems had been in Brussels, Clegg said they would have been because he is ‘not under the same constraints from my parliamentary party.’
Clegg described Cameron as being trapped between the ‘intransigence’ of the French and Eurosceptics in the Conservative party. Intriguingly, the deputy Prime Minister blamed the French for there being no negotiation about the British asks. This suggests that he would have favoured accepting something less than the six safeguards that the coalition requested. The deputy Prime Minister said that, without some concessions, Cameron wouldn’t have been able to get a deal through the Commons because of ‘the intransigence of the Tory party.’
This morning’s tone from Clegg is a radical departure from his approach on Friday when he expressed disappointment about the failure to reach a deal but appeared broadly supportive of the Prime Minister’s approach. The question now is whether the Conservative side of the coalition returns fire or whether it takes an indulgent attitude to this very public cry of pain from the pro-European Clegg.
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