NICK Clegg has been caught on camera conceding that die-hard Remainers will never be able to block Brexit.

Despite the Lib Dems promising to try to obstruct our departure from the EU, the former Deputy Prime Minister has admitted their plan is doomed and the result of the referendum will go through.

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Speaking candidly to party activists just days before the crunch Richmond by-election — where the party is standing on a promise to block Brexit — Mr Clegg said the “bad news is Article 50 is going to go through.”

However the party’s local candidate said she would take a win in the showdown against former Tory Zac Goldsmith on Thursday as a “personal mandate to oppose Brexit” that she would “use to vote against" the official EU exit process.

Wannabe MP Sarah Olney told voters last week: “I still think that remaining in Europe is the best for Britain.”

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But campaigning at her side in the leafy South West London suburb on Friday night, Mr Clegg let slip that their efforts were futile and Brexit would get Commons approval whatever happens.

He landed the blame at Labour’s door, who he accused letting the government write a “blank cheque” on when to trigger the official two year departure process.

He lashed out at “extremely curious behaviour from a principled party of opposition but nevermind.”

The Lib Dems have vowed to try to amend Commons legislation giving the green light the triggering of our EU withdrawal.

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Last month Mr Clegg said that he hoped the triggering of Article 50 would be delayed, and any pause “would be a very good thing.”

But former Minister Dominic Raab hit out saying: “The Lib Dems yet again look tricksy, campaigning against something even Nick Clegg thinks is inevitable.”

The Tory MP, who sits on the Commons powerful Brexit Select Committee, accused the Lib Dems of “taking the public for fools”.

The shock confession came as Labour left the door open to backing a second referendum.

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Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry refused to rule out the possibility of another vote on the terms of the government’s Brexit deal.

Mrs Thornberry was asked on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show whether she agreed with Tony Blair’s recent assertion that Brexit could be stopped.

She said: “I think that we need to take this in stages”, and added we should take Brexit “step by step”.

The Conservatives seized on the remarks to accuse Labour of being “completely out of touch with working people”.

Voters in Richmond Park and North Kingston go to the polls on Thursday after former Tory MP Zac Goldsmith triggered a by-election in the seat over his opposition to Heathrow expansion.