Clegg will say that Farage and his fellow isolationists will "hand the keys to running our European continent to the Germans, the French and others." ©Ian West/PA Wire/Press Association Images.
Nick Clegg will today mount a searing attack on Britain’s Eurosceptics ahead of the European Elections, dismissing those who would leave the European Union (EU) as “false patriots.”
In a lecture to the European Studies Centre at St Antony’s College, Oxford, the Deputy Prime Minister is expected to say that Ukip, Conservative backbenchers and others who are against Britain's continued membership of the Union are “not thinking about Britain’s interests.”
“The isolation they offer is a breach of our history, of our great British tradition of engagement, and of our enlightened national self-interest,” he will say.
Clegg will praise the EU as “the most sophisticated response to globalisation anywhere on the planet,” and “the world’s largest borderless marketplace.”
Highlighting the “millions of British jobs” supported by the Union, as well as the creation of the single market, the speech will paint involvement in Europe as a patriotic act.
“If the forces of insularity and chauvinism get their way they will ensure that Britain no longer benefits from the political and economic advances in Europe that we have shaped," Clegg will warn.
Clegg’s Liberal Democrats face a difficult day at the polls on Thursday. YouGov, the pollster, puts the party in joint fourth place alongside the Green Party with 9 per cent support, behind the Conservatives (23 per cent), Ukip (26 per cent) and Labour (27 per cent).
The party has campaigned for Thursday’s elections on an unabashedly pro-Europe basis, declaring itself “the party of IN” with regard to Europe.
Read Prospect's interview with Nick Clegg in this month's issue, out 22 May.
