LIBERAL DEMOCRAT leader Nick Clegg has said that Eurosceptic Conservative MPs will not push the United Kingdom towards the European Union’s “exit sign”, despite Monday’s House of Commons rebellion by more than 80 of them.
Declining to use soothing words, Mr Clegg seemed prepared to goad the Eurosceptics, who want a referendum on whether the UK should quit or stay in the union, or whether it should renegotiate its membership terms.
“We should stop tilting at windmills about threats and challenges which simply aren’t there right now. This government, of which I’m the deputy prime minister, is not going to launch some sort of dawn raid, some smash and grab raid, on Brussels,” he said.
Eighty-one MPs defied Mr Cameron’s orders to reject the Commons motion, while 15 more abstained. Prime minister David Cameron insisted there would be “no bad blood” between the sides, unlike the splits of the 1990s.
Rebel MPs last night made clear that they will want to see concessions wrung from Brussels quickly. But Mr Cameron – though minded to agree with them on strategy, but not on tactics – will find it near-impossible to assuage them.
Education secretary Michael Gove, among others, insisted that the work to repatriate powers from Brussels goes on, although examples, apart from the UK’s exit from the EU’s euro zone rescue fund, are difficult to find.
Last year’s coalition agreement between the Conservatives and the Lib Dems agreed that “the balance of the EU’s existing competencies” would be examined, while ways would be found to limit the applicability of the EU working-time directive in the UK.
“We have a coalition government and some of the things that Conservative members of the government are saying reflect Conservative party policy and some things reflect the government’s policy,” said a No 10 spokesman.
However, the return of significant powers would not occur unless they could be renegotiated as part of London’s prize for agreeing to a new EU treaty to deal with the euro zone crisis. But privately senior figures said they believe that one will not emerge.
Much of the Conservatives’ ambitions will be frustrated for now because the Lib Dems will not agree to demands for an end to some EU employment law, covering agency workers, among others.
Trades Union Congress general secretary Brendan Barber ridiculed Mr Gove’s argument. “The idea that UK firms are struggling and the economy is flatlining simply because regulation is holding them back is a nonsense,” he said.
Clearly delighted at the Tory rebellion, Labour’s Douglas Alexander said the coalition was “out of touch and a divided government”. He added: “I’m afraid that we’ve got weakness, division and infighting within the government. And frankly that’s bad for Britain at a time when we need them to be fighting for British jobs, for British investment for growth in Europe and elsewhere.”
Labour leader Ed Miliband ordered his MPs to vote against the motion,
Describing the controversial vote as “wilful self-destruction, especially when it wasn’t necessary”, former Lib Dem leader Lord Ashdown said the debate had reopened “the old terrible deep wound that lies at the height of the Tory party”.
Privately, many of the rebels are furious with Mr Cameron.
They accuse him of surrounding himself with a core group of loyalists, of being continually dismissive of them, while some of those who voted as he said are angry that they can now be portrayed as “pro-EU when I am not”, to quote one.
