Europhile Nick Clegg admits ‘soft Brexit is dead’ and Britain WILL quit single market and customs union
The former deputy PM said there was no chance of persuading Theresa May to keep Britain tied to EU bodies
NICK CLEGG today admitted defeat in the battle to force a soft Brexit on Britain by keeping us in the single market and customs union.
The former deputy PM predicted Theresa May “will win the day” with her vision of a UK free from Brussels lawmaking.
But he also issued a rallying cry to Remain-backing MPs, telling them they have a “democratic duty” to reject Mrs May’s Brexit deal in a last-ditch bid to change the referendum result.
Speaking in Brussels, the arch-Europhile said: “This week is the week that the illusion of a so-called soft Brexit has died.
“It was always a nonsense in my view, but there was a feeling that maybe Theresa May would pluck up courage that she’s never displayed hitherto to defy her right-wing.
“There was a slight sense that she was starting to realise the error of her preemptive declaration of red lines, [that this] was going to lead her to try and sue for peace on an emollient basis.
“I think it was always unlikely but it’s now gone. I think it is more likely than not that the Government will win the day.”
Sir Nick accused ministers of showing “industrial scale incompetence” over Brexit that has brought “international embarrassment” on the UK.
He added: “I think there’s a chance a majority of MPs may turn around to the Government and say, ‘Sorry we’re not going to give our consent to this’.
“It’s not a democratic choice, you have a democratic duty to say, ‘Thanks but no thanks.’ There’s no escape to this Brexit cul-de-sac that doesn’t start with MPs taking that courageous decision this autumn.”
In a speech to the Lisbon Council think-tank, the ex-Lib Dem leader urged Remain voters to put “old-fashioned pressure on MPs” by visiting their constituency surgeries.
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And he said that if parliament does vote down a “threadbare” agreement with the EU he hopes EU leaders will “give the UK the time and the space it needs to sort itself out”.
In his speech Sir Nick also compared Brexiteers, whom he derided as “very rich, very angry older men”, to the Communist Bolshevik movement and said they were pursuing a hard exit from the EU they have “no mandate” for.
But he admitted the euro elite’s “sneering disregard” for voters’ patriotism had been a “terrible misreading of what actually makes people tick”.