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DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
Well now, the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, has said this morning that he is bitterly disappointed with the outcome of the European Summit. A source close to Nick Clegg said he was privately furious with the decision to veto a new EU Treaty, despite publicly backing the move, comments which will put a severe strain on the coalition and in a moment I’ll be speaking to the Foreign Secretary, William Hague but first the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, Paddy Ashdown. Also watching the discussion, let me tell first of all before that interview, are our Twitter experts Kevin Schofield, political correspondent at the Sun, Paul Waugh, editor of Politics Home and Vincent Moss, political editor at the Sunday Mirror, thank you all gentlemen. They’ll be providing their reactions via Twitter, you can read on the side panels and you can follow on the website skynews.com/politics and of course you can join in as well, just use the hashtag #murnaghan. Well let’s say a very good morning to Paddy Ashdown, and Paddy Ashdown, Nick Clegg’s reaction, bitterly disappointed, does yours go beyond that, verging on anger?

PADDY ASHDOWN:
Yes, Dermot, it does. Good morning. Yes, I think this is a catastrophically bad move. By the way, when I say a bad move my view is that these negotiations were lost weeks before, maybe even months before, Mr Cameron even stepped in the room because it isn’t that the deal that they put forward was acceptable, it was acceptable. Nick Clegg personally worked very hard indeed to get some of the more ridiculous things out of that deal so that it was one that could have been accepted and, by the way, in my view almost every other Prime Minister in recent times would have had no difficulty getting this deal through in the interests of Britain but Mr Cameron has spent the last three or months on the sidelines, lecturing Europe while not being part of it, and sometimes that has verged into near insult. The Eurosceptic, anti-European prejudice for year after year, supported by many of the newspapers, has now built up an anti-British prejudice in Europe and we’re paying a very, very high price for that so yes, I think this is very bad news. Let’s just see, we have used the veto, we have stopped nothing. In the name of protecting the City, we have made it more vulnerable. As a result of this, in the middle of an economic crisis, those who want to invest abroad will find it more attractive to invest in northern Europe rather than isolated Britain. We have handed the Eurosceptics the entire agenda of the referendum, we have strengthened the hand of Mr Salmond in order to be able to create an argument for Scotland to leave Britain and we have not only isolated ourselves but diminished our standing in Washington – and all that in the name of standing up for Britain? I just think it is very bad news.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
Well then, taking all that on board and that analysis of yours, shared I would suspect by many in the Liberal Democrat party, would they be wrong then in questioning the Lib Dems place in the coalition? There is a Lib Dem source quoted in the papers today saying well if there are two things the Lib Dems stand for it is electoral reform – well the Conservatives helped to shoot that fox, and also being at the heart of Europe, and now that’s gone.

PADDY ASHDOWN:
Yes, they’d be wrong. The coalition has to survive, this doesn’t make it easier that’s for sure and if Mr Cameron allows the 81 Eurosceptics to run him rather than him running them, then … I mean these guys, let’s be clear, they hate Brussels first but they hate the coalition second, and if he was not prepared to resist them over this, what will he resist them on? But no, the coalition is in the interests of the country because the first thing we have to do is get ourselves through the economic catastrophe left behind by Labour and that comes first. Jobs and everything else depends on that. By the way, the decision taken in Europe won’t make that any easier for reasons we’ve just discussed but we have to hold the coalition together. I just hope however … I mean look Dermot, I’ve been through this before, I remember Maastricht. Mr Cameron says he was forced to listen to the 81, he was not under threat in the House of Commons as John Major was . John Major could have lost the vote in the House of Commons yet he had the courage to stand up to his ‘bastards’, his words by the way not mine. Mr Cameron was not under threat, he’d have got this through the House of Commons, the Labour party would have supported it. I am afraid to say that in this instance, and it pains me to say so, Mr Cameron has acted as the leader of the Conservative party and not the Prime Minister of Britain.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
But you mentioned there, Paddy Ashdown, being in charge whilst Maastricht was being negotiated but of course you weren’t in power then, you were able to speak exactly as you felt. Now in coalition …

PADDY ASHDOWN:
Hang on, Dermot, hang on, no we …

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
… Isn’t Mr Clegg and aren’t the Liberal Democrats being damaged by this, particularly the initial reaction from Mr Clegg, we were allowed to be led to believe that he was quite supportive of Mr Cameron’s stance.

PADDY ASHDOWN:
Well let me just address the first question … He was absolutely supportive of it, he tried to … he did what he could to make that acceptable, to make that something, as I said, any other British Prime Minister could have got through except one who has generated such animosity. Frankly, frankly I suspected if Mr Cameron walked in the room and asked for a cup of tea, Mr Sarkozy would not have lost the opportunity to say no. If you want to get a deal out of Europe you don’t spend the previous three or four months slagging everybody off who you are then going to have to do a deal with. Okay, this was about Gallic pique, I understand that, and people will be pretty upset by Mr Sarkozy for what was in my view not a very statesmanlike move but the real problem wasn’t Sarkozy, the real problem was such was the animus that Britain has expressed towards everything Europe from the Eurosceptics and from so many of the newspapers, that there now is an anti-British prejudice building up in Europe. Does that do us any good? It absolutely doesn’t and just so I can correct you, effectively we did do a coalition, a short-term coalition, with Mr Major to get the Maastricht Bill through but here’s the difference, Mr Major had the courage to stand up to the anti-Europeans, the ‘bastards’ as he called them, even though he could have lost in the House of Commons. Mr Cameron would never have lost in the House of Commons but still has allowed them to drive the agenda. I find that very depressing.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
Let’s draw more parallels then, because we’ve heard you talk, we’ve heard Mr Clegg talk about the Eurosceptics that seem to be in your analysis driving policy here, what do the Lib Dems do in government to do two things in terms of European police – rebuild those bridges with Europe and get a seat back at that negotiating table and neutralise the Eurosceptics?

PADDY ASHDOWN:
Well look, if the Eurosceptics now want to go about having destroyed our future in Europe, destroying the coalition, then that is going to be a very dangerous move but providing the Prime Minister is prepared to restrain them from that stupid position, and I hope he is, then what we do is what Nick Clegg has just so brilliantly said on the Marr programme, we’ve got to get ourselves back in there and see if we can begin to rebuild some of that support, some of that contact, some of that influence, some of that leverage in Europe. Here is the real catastrophe, that we haven’t just … what people don’t understand, Dermot, is that Washington was there on Thursday, they were in the margins, they were watching, they were willing Europe to work together because it’s in their interests that it should do so. What influence do we have in Washington if we are isolated? We are going to be less important in Europe and we are going to be less important in Washington too, wonderful Little Britain, totally isolated from a situation and by the way, the thing that people have forgotten here is that there is another agenda, there is the Scottish agenda. We have now handed Mr Salmond an uncovenanted advantage which is he can now argue since England is going to be out of Europe, let us be in. We have actually strengthened the hand of those who want to break the union and we’ve got to find our way back and I think Nick Clegg has made it very clear that he is dedicated to that and so am I, we don’t accept [interference] …

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
… They’re talking about renegotiating the whole relationship with the EU and indeed of course, that R word, having a referendum.

PADDY ASHDOWN:
Yes, that is exactly what could happen and Mr Cameron has effectively handed the entire referendum agenda over to the Eurosceptics, they are clearly driving for an early referendum and they all know what they want, it is out of Europe altogether. That would vastly exaggerate the damage that was done on Thursday, hugely exaggerate that damage. So we will work with the government but the Eurosceptics ought to realise very clearly that we will not work with them, we will oppose them every step of the way and if the government were stupid enough to give in to them, then the consequences of that would indeed be very grave. I’m not going to say, I’m not going to go down that track but it all depends what happens next. If we can act in a sensible fashion, a government that puts Britain’s interests first rather than 81 MPs in the Conservative party, that begins now to rebuild some of the damage that’s been done on Thursday, that uses our influence to get back into Europe, then we can stabilise this thing but it’s going in the wrong direction now and people should understand that very, very clearly.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
You know I am going to have a go at trying to push you down that track, what do you mean by the consequences could be very grave?

PADDY ASHDOWN:
Well, imagine the consequences for Britain if we were to leave Europe altogether, if we were to leave the EU, if we were to become … and by the way, the next thing that happened was that the Scots voted for separation, then it really is Little England. Who can imagine worst consequences than that? So the consequences for our country would be very grave and who can doubt that?

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
Okay, Paddy Ashdown, thank you very much indeed.