Nick Clegg: We must make case for Europe or face economic suicide

The isolationist forces in Britain are on the rise –- Ukip on the doorstep; Conservative politicians at their conference; familiar headlines in some of our newspapers each placing Britain’s ills firmly at Brussels’s door: too much immigration, too much crime, too much red tape. And every time Europe is back in the spotlight, their hostility towards it – this negative reaction to all things continental – drowns out the other voices in this debate.

Pro-Europeans have to take some responsibility for that. The moderate and rational voices have been too quiet up until now. But we cannot afford that silence any more. We are no longer asking if Britain will have a referendum on continued membership, we are asking when Britain will have a referendum on continued membership.

And all this at the worst possible time. Our economy is finally turning a corner, but the recovery is fragile. We should be focusing on finishing the job and laying the foundations for long-term growth, not entertaining the idea of an EU exit that would throw our recovery away.

Let me be absolutely clear – leaving the EU would be economic suicide. You cannot overstate the damage it would do to British livelihoods and prosperity.

Three million British jobs are linked to the Single Market – three million. As a member we are part of the world’s biggest borderless market place, made up of 500 million people. It’s now the largest economy in the world – ahead of the United States – and it’s where we do around half of all our trade.

Major non-European companies build their factories here precisely because we are a springboard to the EU. And it’s not just jobs and prosperity. What will happen to our influence in the world if we choose to go it alone?

Of course Britain must build up relationships with emerging powers and like-minded nations in other continents. But this idea that we can pull up the anchor, drift away from our neighbourhood – our historical and geographical allies – only to float around in some new network of relationships is a nonsense.

I worked in Europe; I used to negotiate trade deals with the Russians and the Chinese. We simply will not be taken seriously by the Americans, the Chinese, the Indians, all the big superpowers if we’re isolated and irrelevant in our own backyard.

We stand tall in Washington, Beijing, Delhi when we stand tall in Brussels, Paris and Berlin.

Two weeks ago I was in Washington. Did they want to discuss US/UK trade? No – they understandably wanted to talk about the big money, the US/EU deal. The Americans value their old friend Britain as a bridge to Europe as much as anything else.

What will happen to our citizens’ safety if we leave? The British police depend on co-operation with their counterparts abroad. Just last week we heard Rob Wainwright, the British head of Europol, declare that it would be an “unmitigated disaster” if Britain withdrew from the organisation. Criminals cross borders – so must we.

What about our environment? Climate change doesn’t stop at Dover. There is no point reducing our carbon footprint unless our neighbours do the same.

Every way you look at it – jobs, influence, safety, the environment – the UK is infinitely better off in the EU. I’m not worried about how we make the case for membership to the British people – the argument is ours to win.

But I am worried that we’re not out there making it. My great fear, in all of this, is that pro-Europeans are being too slow to wake up to the danger ahead.

The day I dread – the day I hope never comes – is a time when it is all too late: Britain has stumbled out of the EU, and we look back to these days and say we should have done more. It will not be enough to speak up on the eve of a referendum. We need to start challenging some of the ludicrous mythmaking by the isolationists now. Brussels isn’t perfect by any means. But it’s just not true that it’s some kind of sinister super-bureaucracy – the Commission is smaller than Birmingham City Council. It’s just not true that the Treasury is robbed blind for the privilege of membership – last year our contribution to the EU Budget was around the same as we spend on the NHS every two or three weeks.

It’s just not true that we’re at the mercy of a foreign elite. Britain shapes everything that happens in the EU. Nothing passes into UK law without the input of our MEPs and Government Ministers.

So we need to counter the myths. And we need to explain the real reasons Britain belongs in the EU and what is really at stake in this debate.

*Nick Clegg is the Deputy Prime Miinister and leader of the Liberal Democrats. This is an edited version of a speech delivered yesterday by the Sheffield Hallam MP.