Nick Clegg has made a not-so-startling intervention in the debate about Britain’s relationship with Europe today, warning that Britain must avoid selling itself short in a renegotiation. His interview with the Guardian is a necessary piece of positioning ahead of David Cameron’s Big Europe Speech in mid-January, and this kind of differentiation is something the Tories are more than happy for the Lib Dem leader to continue doing. So in some ways, Clegg warning Cameron not to overdo it on Europe isn’t at all significant.
But the Deputy Prime Minister makes an important observation in his interview about Britain’s bargaining power. Describing the creation of the single market and the enlargement of the EU in 2004 and 2007 as two of the ‘biggest historical triumphs’ of the past 40 years, he says:
‘Both of those projects were British projects. Both of them would not have happened without Britain. What I take from that is that, you know, even when we’re not at the front of the queue, when we exercise leadership we really can shape things in our own image and in the national interest.’
Though they take different stances, this is an argument that many Tory eurosceptics employ as well when they talk about renegotiation.
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