Nick Clegg: uncertainty over EU will have chilling effect on jobs

Nick Clegg said the UK could not 'unilaterally rewrite the terms of our membership of this European club'. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Nick Clegg has warned his coalition partner that a prolonged period of uncertainty over British membership of the EU will have a chilling effect on jobs and growth, saying that "an arcane debate" about UK's relationship with the EU could go on for years and years.

He also insisted that leaflets produced by the Liberal Democrats offering an in-or-out referendum produced before the election were superseded by his party's manifesto promise to offer a referendum only if there was a transfer of power to Brussels.

The deputy prime minister said the Lib Dems and the Conservatives had been the parties that had put that commitment into law.

Referring to David Cameron's strategy for renegotiating Britain's relationship with the EU, he said: "I do not agree with the premise that on our own we can unilaterally rewrite the terms of our membership of this European club. We do not know how the rules are going to be rewritten in the eurozone yet ? when those rules will be rewritten, or in what way."

Clegg pointed out that some major countries in the EU did not want there to be any treaty change at all.

He said: "If the new treaty becomes reality, asks new things of UK ? in other words a transfer of powers from Westminster to Brussels ? then a referendum would be held."

But he set himself apart from Cameron's tactics before his speech expected on Friday in the Netherlands. He said: "We should be very careful at a time when the British economy was going through a halting recovery from the worst economic shock in a generation to create a very high degree period of prolonged uncertainty. In my view, uncertainty is the enemy of jobs and growth. Our priority in this government and as a national duty has got to be to foster jobs and growth ? if you are an investor investing in the UK it is unnecessary to create a high degree of uncertainty that might chase away that investment and diminish the number of jobs in the UK."

He said that, given there was a certainty a referendum would be held if there was a transfer of powers: "I don't think it is wise to add to that a degree of a uncertainty that would have a chilling effect on jobs and growth, and for me growth and jobs in the priority, and not an arcane debate that will go on for years and years."

Clegg was repeatedly challenged on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme over a leaflet with a picture of him asking the public to sign his petition calling for an in-out referendum, but he said he had been consistent in implementing in law his specific manifesto commitment to a referendum if there was a transfer of powers.

The earlier leaflet covered a period when the party had promised an in-out referendum at the time of the Lisbon treaty.

He also defended his party's decision to vote against the constituency boundary review being implemented in this parliament, saying it was not the first time there had been a disagreement between the two parties over constitutional reform.

He said: "I have been very open that the coalition is by definition a package deal and if one side to that deal does not honour that agreement it is perfectly reasonable to say there are some principles and there is a going to be a delay."

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jan/15/nick-clegg-eu-chilling-jobs

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