Clegg: Starmer’s EU deal is a ‘damp squib’

In a blast from the past, the UK’s onetime deputy prime minister Nick Clegg popped up again in London today to muse, 15 years on, about his party’s coalition with the Conservatives. But despite this being the purpose of his talk, it didn’t take the arch-Remainer long to get to the subject of the European Union. Lauding the coalition he helped lead as a ‘five-year haven of stability’ between the earlier financial crisis and the referendum on the EU that followed, Clegg blamed Brexit for slowing UK economic growth – and dubbed it ‘one of the greatest acts of economic self-harm in modern times’. Is he happy then that Prime Minister Keir Starmer yesterday struck a new deal with our European allies? Er, no. ‘It’s a bit of a damp squib,’ he huffed.

Despite Sir Keir’s agreement with the European Union suggesting closer ties on issues from defence to borders to energy, Clegg is unimpressed.