Clegg Warns Against 'Repatriation' Over EU

Nick Clegg has warned attempts to alter Britain’s relationship with the EU could be "catastrophic".

The Deputy Prime Minister was speaking to international affairs think-tank Chatham House.

"I don't think the EU is perfect by any measure, and I'm a big advocate of EU reform," he said.

He labelled calls for a "repatriation" of powers a "false promise wrapped in a union jack".

Clegg’s statement came as David Cameron has called for a "new settlement with Europe".

The PM told MPs he expected proposals to return powers to the UK to be "in our manifesto and I think it will get a ringing endorsement from the British people."

But Nick Clegg has said "many of the people who advocate repatriation are the same people who want us out of the EU altogether.

"This idea that we could or should extract ourselves from the bulk of EU obligations is nonsensical."

He warned against Euro sceptic MPs, saying "no repatriation of powers would ever be enough" for them.

"Heading for the exit would be the surest way to diminish our great country."

Nick Clegg claimed the UK would lose power in Washington and would still have to conform to EU laws, despite having less of a say in how they were formed.

"To go down that route would be a catastrophic loss of sovereignty for the UK," he said.

"If anyone else tried to do that, if the French tried to duck out of the rules on the environment on consumer protection, if the Germans tried to opt out of their obligations on competition and the single market, we would stop them, and rightly so."

(IT)