Lib Dems turn on Cameron over veto

Mr Clegg revealed he was “bitterly disappointed” with the Prime Minister’s use of the veto in Brussels last week.

In a statement to the Commons today, Mr Cameron will insist that he could not sign up to treaty change without securing “reasonable” safeguards for British interests that fellow EU leaders refused to provide.

But amid undisguised fury from senior Liberal Democrats, the Deputy Prime Minister said Mr Cameron had failed to bring back any new safeguards for the UK economy.

“I’m bitterly disappointed by the outcome of last week’s summit, precisely because I think now there is a danger that the UK will be isolated and marginalised within the European Union,” he told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show.

“I don’t think that’s good for jobs, in the City or elsewhere, I don’t think it’s good for growth or for families up and down the country.”

Asked what he had told the Prime Minister in a 4am telephone call on Friday morning, the Lib Dem leader said: “I said this was bad for Britain. I made it clear that it was untenable for me to welcome it.”

Mr Clegg made plain his frustration at the influence on Mr Cameron of eurosceptic Tory MPs, who have been jubilantly praising the Prime Minister’s “bulldog spirit” in vetoing a new EU treaty at the summit.

“There’s nothing bulldog about Britain hovering somewhere in the mid-Atlantic, not standing tall in Europe, not being taken seriously in Washington.”

The Deputy Prime Minister said if he had been at the summit then “of course things would have been different”.

“What David Cameron clearly needed was to bring something back to show that safeguards were secure, and that didn’t happen,” he added.

His comments fuelled Labour accusations that Mr Cameron was looking after the interests of his backbenchers, who are desperate to see the Government renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU or withdraw altogether.

The Prime Minister is likely to receive a warm reception from his MPs this afternoon but any display of triumphalism will risk deepening the rift with his Lib Dem coalition partners.

Mr Clegg made clear he would not allow the UK to leave the EU - a goal to which some Tory eurosceptics are now seriously turning their minds.

“Far from retreating further to the margins, which is what some eurosceptics want, we should be re-engaging fully and we are going to have to redouble our efforts in doing so,” he said.

He insisted there was “no case” for a referendum - contrary to renewed Tory demands - and, challenged that Britain could end up outside the EU, Mr Clegg said: “I will fight that tooth and nail.

“A Britain that leaves the EU will be considered irrelevant by Washington and will be a pygmy in the world when I want us to stand tall in the world.”

Foreign Secretary William Hague insisted Britain was “not marginalised” and suggested Mr Clegg had signed up to the Government’s bargaining position in advance of the summit.

“We are not marginalised, I can assure you of that,” he told Sky News.

“Our agreement is required in the EU to a whole range of other decisions that will be coming up over the next few months.

“We work closely with our partners on foreign policy, on the single market, and so on, and that will continue.”

Asian stock markets rose today as investors cheered the European fiscal pact aimed at fixing the region’s debt crisis and preventing the euro’s collapse.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index jumped 1.5 per cent to 8,665.76. South Korea’s Kospi went up 1.2 per cent to 1,896.35 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 1.6 per cent to 18,874.22.