Nick Clegg - UK Deputy Prime Minister, 2010-2015 HARDtalk

Welcome to HARDtalk, I'm Stephen Sackur. Elected politicians tend to

lose their grip on power and prestige with brutal speed, and so

it was for my guest today. For five years, Nick Clegg was Britain's

Deputy Prime Minister, the Liberal Democrat who entered a coalition

with the Conservatives and gave his party their first real taste of

power in generations, and then came the 2015 Gemill election. His party

was annihilated and he took much of the blame. His brand of liberal pro-

European politics now looks like badly damaged goods. Is there anyone

to blame but himself? Nick Clegg, welcome to HARDtalk.

Good to be here. How easy is it to deal with that sense of overwhelming

rejection which you must have had after the 2015 election? A little

bit easier than you might imagine because anyone watching this

programme thinking of going into politics, don't go into politics if

what you want is endless praise and bouquets of flowers condiments.

Politics is a rough business and you shouldn't embark on it if you are

prepared to live and die by the sword. In that sense, I wasn't

braced for the result that materialised but you kind of have to

accept that is part of the life you choose if you go into politics. That

covers the personal feeling, the voters said no to you, not in your

constituency but to your party, but I'm thinking more the rejection of

ideas. What you have offered the British public, that liberal vision,

and particularly the pro- European vision was soundly and roundly

rejected. That must hurt and worry you? I'll wouldn't take it

personally because I think the rejection of our membership of the

year European Union, which was more manifest in the referendum rather

than the election last year... I feel more worried about the future

of the UK following that referendum than I did following the defeat of

my party in the polls and the election last year. Parties come and

go, politicians rise and fall but it seems to me that turned the country

has taken on the 23rd of June is altogether more serious and in my

view I think we will lose something quite precious. I'm more concerned

and worried about that than I was even at the Madaya of my fortunes

and my party's fortunes in the general election last year. Let's

keep on the European theme then and look at the sorts of things you have

said and the mindset you bring to the table when we consider Britain

and Europe. You said this recently," I regard the referendum outcome as

the greatest act of national self immolation in modern times". That a

direct quote from your book. And you foresee, it seems, nothing but doom

for the United Kingdom. Now, that's a message that was peddled by David

Cameron and yourself before the election but here we sit two or

three months later and doom, armageddon certainly hasn't arrived.

Because we haven't left yet. There's a very odd state of the Nile over

the summer that, oh, look, the referendum happen, the Earth is

still spinning and the sun is still coming up in the morning. The

economy is humming along and the markets are happy. But nothing has

happened. But the markets know we will make an exit from the EU. This

is an important point and a great dilemma we will face over the coming

years, they don't know and no one knows and most worryingly the

government doesn't know on what terms we leave. Yes, the decision

has been taken that the UK will leave the EU but how you do that...

It's not a technocratic issue, it's a profound issue that strikes at the

heart of what will happen to the economy, what... It has

constitutional implications for how law is passed, whether we mimic law

in the EU or not, profound implications on how we fight crime

and deal with climate change. How you leave, which by the way wasn't

put before the British people on the 23rd of June because the Brexiteers,

this Motley Crew of Pied Piper is that persuaded us to take this

unprecedented leap couldn't agree among themselves what Brexit meant.

It doesn't surprise me at all in a sense that nothing has happened

because in a sense nothing has happened. The Motley Crew of pied

pipers, it's a phrase I suppose that is somewhat sneering. It's more than

that, I think it has been one of the most spectacular acts of political

dishonesty on the part of a number of opportunists and populists who

have fed on people's legitimate grievances about their lives to

promise them 315 million for the end of the NHS and immigration problems.

Promises and threats were made on both sides, which were probably not

justified by the facts, but I'm more interested in the intellectual basis

on which you approach this. Your approach seems to be that all those

of reasonable and rational mind must be pro- Remain in the European

Union. You seem to assume that all those who in the end won the

argument, the Brexiteers, are nothing but opportunists and liars.

Too many people in the UK, including serious and respected politicians,

economists and business leaders, that's unacceptable. No, I don't

think it is. They now lead to live up to the possibility for what they

have done that need to. I don't have an argument, I met thousands of my

constituents in Sheffield, I have no argument with those people voting

for Brexit because for them the question wasn't about whether you

like this directive or that directive or agreeing with the

master of criteria, for ordinary voters who are angry and frustrated

and haven't had a pay rise since 2008, concerned whether their kids

will get their feet on the first rung of the property ladder, I

disagree but I understand that for them the referendum was an

opportunity to give the status quo a kicking and to say, no, I'm angry

with my lot and I want it change. I have no argument with them but I do

have an argument... I'm not going to backpedal about my dismay at the

intellectual dishonesty with which otherwise intelligent people across

the political spectrum sought to persuade people that this utopia

would beckon if we would leave the EU. The EU is a deeply flawed

organisation. This comes to your question about the intellectual

basis. The reason I think what has been lost is so precious is for this

reason. We live in a globalised world. If I think about the future

of my children will occupy in decades ahead, there's almost

nothing which will impinge on their lives. The environment, rhyme, jobs,

prosperity which doesn't in one shape or form require a collective

international response -- crime. Cutting ourselves off from the

flawed but nonetheless most sophisticated way of taking

collective international decisions in our hemisphere seems something

that is shortchanging the fortunes of the young. And by the way that is

also what the young think. You are a Democrat, you made that case and you

lost, you fail, let's be blunt. This is something interesting the

Canadian level, is a very like-minded politician to you,

something that he said observing you and this is something he wrote in

the review of your recent book, he said," Presenting yourself as the

uncontestable voice of sweet reason isn't smart politics. It is elitist

condescension and the Brexiteers have their reasons and their reasons

won the argument" Clay's brand of liberal modernisation is the natural

mating call of elite cosmopolitans -- Clegg. I don't agree with that in

the same way that people who contest Donald Trump's assertion that all

America's problems will be solved if you build a wall against Mexicans.

You think there is a direct parallel? Donald Trump and the

arguments to leave the European Union? There a populist... Isn't

that your condescension? It is taking the arguments seriously and

if I'd fixed line, populism down the ages has always... It has come in

any shapes or form, nationalist or not, populist or not, it has taken

complex problems and says to angry or fearful voters, I feel your anger

and here's the solution, build a wall, yank yourselves out of the...

Nationalists north of the border who I think are a form of populism,

saying it is all London's fault. It is grievance politics, blaming

complex problems on something or someone else is. Here's the rub, the

many people I met who voted Brexit, actually the things they need,

decent jobs, decent funded social care, better public services, a

fairer slice of the cake, better housing, all of those things should

be provided for by British governments and aren't going to be

solved by yanking out of the EU. Do you agree with the lead of the Lib

Dems today, Tim Farron, your successor, who says there should be

a second referendum, saying the answer is wrong so we need the

people to vote against. That's not what he said, what he said, and

rightly in my view, the facts in the coming years will bear him out I

think, he says the decision has been taken openly and democratically, not

I don't like something I agree with but it has happened, leaving the EU,

but nobody spelt out to the British people before the 23rd of June what

Brexit meant. When that happens, when a deal is struck, all the

questions about agriculture, science, free movement, the single

market, trade relations, once those are settled in the same way the

principal decision was taken by the British people to leave, the terms

of departure should also be... That is blatantly absurd, it will take

two years to get the deal done. Bemba vote will happen and either

the British public will agree to the deal but if they don't, which you

hope they won't, then what happens? We are in total in Bow. It would be

an absurd demand to make if the Brexiteers secured a mandate for a

particular model of exit for Brexit before the 23rd of June, they not

only deliberately suffocated and disagreed with themselves about what

it means for the UK outside the EU, they made a number of very seductive

commitments, all of which have evaporated within a few days and

weeks since the referendum. So it is reasonable for Tim Farron to say in

keeping with the democratic principle of a referendum to decide

to leave in the first place, the terms of departure, which isn't

technical, it is profoundly important how we leave, should also

be subject to a vote for the British people. In simple terms you are

backing a second referendum? On the terms of departure. Once the deal

has been struck? And the British public will be into that? I think

over time there will be a growing appetite for it because I think it

will be so difficult for this government to actually engineer a

successful form of Brexit which conforms to everything they want,

apparently they want free trade, though want all the nice bits of

security in the EU but not the bad bits and so forth. We challenge them

in terms of what they are doing. This is important, the British

people will be frustrated that having been told everything will be

simple they actually find it's not that straightforward and at that

point the British people should be allowed to have their say and not be

told to like it or lump it. The coalition government as we now know

and you know to your cost cost your party so dear. It has led to the

annihilation of your party. Not annihilation. You have eight seeds

and you began with 57. 2.5 million people voted for the Liberal

Democrats. The Liberal Democrats last year got 1 million more votes

than the SNP, we have eight and they have 56. To say to 2.5 million

people that the cause you believe in has been annihilated is

self-evidently not true. The insult doesn't come from me but it comes

from you and the decisions in the coalition, most obviously the

decision you make on a U-turn not to raise tuition fees. It was your

supporters who felt insulted by that and that is why they left you in

their droves. That's correct. This insult you are talking about is

something you delivered. I am challenging the silly assertions to

save a party that garnered 1 million more votes than the SNP in an

election a year ago at a low point is annihilated and that is

self-evidently absurd. We are winning by-elections. In Sheffield

last Thursday. We let from fourth to first place. You read the polls like

I do, you know what they say. They haven't shifted much. 7%. If there's

one industry that has been discredited in recent times it is

polling. Is it annihilated? No. Was damage done to the Lib Dems by us

going into coalition? Of course it was, it would be odd to say

otherwise, otherwise I wouldn't have resigned or written a book detailing

in meticulous details exactly what went right and what went wrong. You

called a debacle, you called the tuition fee decision a debacle but

you don't really explain why. I did explain. Let me explain. We didn't

win the election. I was not Prime Minister. We didn't have the

democratic right to implement our manifesto in full. You did not need

to back Cameron on the tuition fee issue. You didn't need to but you

chose to. B explained. -- let me explain. They

were certain to see fees increased. Given their sanctimonious claim

later... Today you don't seem to be saying sorry. You asked me for an LX

-- explanation. If you asked me for an apology, I could do that. But you

have a different expression. Both parties agreed more than they did

with me that they wanted fees increased. If the Liberal Democrat

entered into an agreement with labour, we had no money to commit to

abolish and of fees. We did the next best thing. That was the compromise.

There are some people are no that would call a Coppermine is a

betrayal. Until heaven freezes over. -- compromise. It is what happens in

coalition governments, there is no secret and there was no secret about

that. If you don't have power on your own, you compromise. It cost us

a great deal politically. As it happens, it was a system that led to

a different outcome in university education that many people predicted

and now we have more people from disadvantaged grounds in university

than before. Do I apologise to the anger and frustration that people

feel that we made a commitment that we clearly couldn't keep? Yes, we

do. What about the realities of having to make compromise? I can't

and I won't. It was just a question of how the coalition worked out.

Left-wing commentators and analysts, "Almost everything that Nick Clegg

colluded with in the government was an error. Almost everything he

achieved by comparison was Kipling. His role, now, is as a warning

beacon of what not to do. " This is always the same of people like him.

The angry sanctimonious left ends up doing the spadework for the right.

It is patented ludicrous to say the income tax system introduced is...

Not just from the left but from the right. You never push Cameron out of

his comfort zone. You made many wins. They did not push Cameron into

places he didn't go. You own supporters wanted him to go. -- your

own. I want to cite people I may disagree with. I don't agree with

him at all. Instead of constantly beating up on the Liberal Democrat,

they kept their eye on their conservatives. The Conservatives

would not be as dominant as they are now. In a coalition government when

no one wins outright. You strike compromises. Having spent five years

doing it, I know a lot more than Polly Toynbee. Of course the

Conservatives did not like what was put in place which they dismantled

over the last years. They did not like that we didn't want to have a

referendum on their terms will stop of course it didn't want the huge

amount of money dedicated to the poorest children at the youngest age

in the way that we did. Of course they did not like the massive

revolution in the income tax personal system, personal income tax

system, which they condemned as unaffordable. To dismiss all these

things as piffling is a self evidently ludicrous. You can argue

about whether the Libs are on life support or not that you have eight

MPs, no presence in Westminster, their presence in the country in

terms of the noise made by politics, what will happen to the voters that

fill themselves still to be centre ground voters question mark element

it is a big question that will shape the future of politics over the next

few years. There will be an alignment over the next few years.

The basic transmission of our democracy has ground to a halt. It

has stopped. With a new Prime Minister he was to secure her own

mandate, they got 24% of the vote? They now rely on elderly English

voters, not exclusively, but largely, to sustain their power. As

long as they kneecap labour beyond the border, there is no way that

labour can sustain. A healthy democracy relies on the people of

power constantly worrying that someone is go to take power away

from them. That is now impossible. Labour cannot win, YouTube can't,

Greens can't, somehow to restore the balance, the yin and yang that all

democracies need, I think it is time that politicians of different

persuasions start working together. In your analysis of what is

happening in politics, across the world, you talk about the importance

and the growing influence of the politics of grievance, of identity,

of the heart and a motion, rather than the head and rationality. If

that is the case then I am struggling to see how what you are

offering, what you offered in 2015 in the election and what you offer

today in terms of Europe and the whole raft of other issues as well,

is really appealing to the voters of today. What you have to ask is what

kind of world do you think we can have and the problems that we face

which is considerable, what is the best way to deal with them? Politics

at the end of the day is about trying to offer a better life and

answer problems that people face. I personally do not, however much you

urge me to do this, I will not accept that the way to deal with a

lack of affordable housing, a lack of decent social care, a lack of

wage progression, the millions of low income workers is the point the

finger of dream at Brussels or Islam of foreigners or single mothers. I

do not believe that simply pointing a vitriolic finger of blame which is

at the heart of populism. ... It is the temper of the Times. If you

except that the temper of the Times is how I described it, how are you

with your Liberal centre ground politics going to match the temper

of the times? It is one of the reasons I wrote the book. I do not

have the encyclopaedic answer but some of the elements of the answer,

the politics of reason, should perhaps be less reasonable in

standing up for itself. What does that mean? There is an almost

Pastoral response to some of the vivid and rather livid allegations

and claims -- pastel. Whether it is the Raj, Trump, -- Nigel Farage,

Marilla Penn, they say things that are patently... We need to be more

vocal in spelling out why they are false prophets, they are making

false promises of simplicity to a complex problem. I think most

people, most of the time, are smart enough to know that life is not

always simple and that is sometimes you want to have solutions to things

in a complex world, you cannot just do so by building walls or blaming

others. Let's end with a personal question. Politics has been tough

for you in the last couple of years, you have been derided, you're from

-- and family have copped a bruising. David Cameron has

announced he is quitting politics. You go to do the same? I made that

promise to my constituents that I will stay. Sheffield Hallam last

May. You make it sound like a penance. No, no, no. I made that

commitment. I made my work as a constituent MP. You have been at the

very pinnacle of British politics, deputy Prime Minister, it is hard to

see where you go from there. Weller I do not know what the future holds.

--I do not know. Most MPs haven't in 2016, made public whether they will

stand again in four years time. I think most people understand there

is a time and a place to confirm that. That is exactly what I will

do. In the meantime and this idea that you can only enjoy politics as

you are being wafted around in a ministerial... It's absurd. It is

more fun to win and Toulouse will stop to politics if you only want to

win. -- more fun to win than two loos. You have to take losses with

as much grace and resilient as the pleasure that you take in winning.

-- lose. Nick Clegg, we have two end there. Thank you for being on

HARDtalk. They give a much. -- thank you.

Our spell of scorching September weather continues across many parts