Sulky Clegg Strop Over Cameron's EU Snub

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SULKING DEPUTY PM NICK CLEGG failed to turn up to prime minister David Cameron’s statement today, (Monday) defending his stance to snub Europe’s greater fiscal union treaty which happened last week in Brussels.

But did Clegg failing to turn up to the House, make the Lib Dems look rather stupid? After all, Clegg and Cameron are supposedly the cemented bricks that hold the coalition together.

It’s almost like a sulky prefect not getting his way.

Lib Dem Clegg  told Sunday’s Andrew Marr he was bitterly disappointed by the PM’s decision, and said that this decision to leave Britain out in the cold would leave Britain isolated in Europe.

But Clegg did say also yesterday that there was no question that the coalition would stay the course until 2015 – ironically in the interests of Britain.

And in an interview today after the PM statement he reiterated this rather sulkily: “The coalition is here to stay.”

Some Conservatives labelled Clegg, on the leading ToryHome website, “two faced.”

Labour leader Ed Miliband jumped on the bandwagon and quipped in his response to the statement, asking: “where was the Deputy PM?”

In the statement, the PM told MPs that he stood by his decision because a treaty within a treaty was not a good deal for Britain, and that sometimes, there were times where you just had to say “no”.

He said: “My job at that European Council was to stand up for Britain’s interests, and that’s what I did.”

And on Labour’s pontifications, he said: “The party opposite can’t even tell us whether they support this new treaty or not.”

But Miliband said that the PM would rue the day when he decided to leave Britain’s seat empty at the European table, and that this was a bad deal for Britain.

He said he came back with nothing.

Several Tory MPs, gloated though at the defiance of the PM, and rallied around him after he had made his statement.

Even the likes of John Redwood admitted that there were times where you just had to say no.

But Miliband told the PM that he had succeeded in leaving Britain out in the cold for not just one summit, but future summits.

He said that he did not want a deal because he could not deliver it through his party.

Cameron’s statement came as 26 members of the EU signed up to potentially allowing a German/Franco agreement to dictate to members outside of the Eurozone regarding their budget deficits.

According to Cameron, Britain sought safeguards regarding financial services, but didn’t get the safeguards he wanted in or outside of the treaty, and so he vetoed it.

But he told MPs that Britain remains a leading member of the Single Market – and that is what he wanted to safeguard.