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Clegg fires back on EU renegotiation

Britain is in danger of becoming sidelined from the “the club” if the Tories continue to make demands on the EU, Nick Clegg has suggested.

In a speech to Chatham House, the Deputy Prime Minister said we need to defend the Single Market and deepen it, if the UK is going to derive benefit from Europe.

He suggested Tory plans to renegotiate the UK’s relationship with the EU were “a false promise, wrapped in a Union Jack.”

Mr Clegg said we have to decide where the UK fits around the European “inner circle” that is developing, and how being on the periphery or “outer circle” is a “very dangerous position.”

He said part of the basis for the UK’s special relationship with Washington was based on our leverage in Europe, and losing this would place the UK in a precarious position.

Elsewhere, Mr Clegg noted that if the UK was to leave the EU, we would lose access to trade agreements with 46 countries and the potential in a further 78 that are currently under negotiation.

He said: “Do we really want to leave the EU, lose these free trade arrangements for UK exporters, which go above and beyond WTO rules, and potentially have to negotiate that all from scratch? The UK government would spend a decade doing that and nothing else.

“And can anyone seriously suggest that Japan, or South Korea, or Brazil would cut us a better deal as an island of 60m people than as a continent of 500 million?

“Around one in every ten jobs in Britain relies on British trade within the Single Market. Around half of all our trade goes to other European states – exports from around 100,000 firms. But as Europe evolves, we cannot take the integrity of the Single Market for granted.”

Mr Clegg drew upon Switzerland and Norway as examples of outside states who operated by “fax democracy”, whereby they follow instructions with no influence.

He said: “Switzerland has no guaranteed access to the Single Market, they have to negotiate on a case-by-case basis, and right now they are having to match – even surpass – rigorous EU banking regulations just to protect business between Swiss and European banks. To go down that route would be a catastrophic loss of sovereignty for this nation. I want better for the UK, and our other allies want better for us too.”

It was also argued that the UK remained attractive to major international employers such as Samsung, Tata and Siemens, who chose to position themselves here on the doorstep of the worlds largest borderless marketplace.

Mr Clegg argued that UK-based automotive manufacturers such as Nissan, Honda and BMW, who currently pay no import tariffs, would be faced with levies of up to 22% if the UK was to exit the EU.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .