Tory rebels trying to claw back power handed to Brussels won't get their way while I'm in power, crows Clegg

Coalition tensions over Europe exploded into the open last night as Nick Clegg told Tory rebels a ‘smash and grab raid’ to claw back powers handed over to Brussels would never take place under this Government.
As David Cameron reeled from the biggest rebellion over Europe ever suffered by a Conservative prime minister, his Liberal Democrat deputy rubbed salt in the wound, insisting that presenting the EU with a list of demands for looser ties ‘won’t work’.
And Downing Street was forced to make clear that Mr Cameron’s commitment to seizing back control in areas such as employment law did not represent Government policy, only that of the Conservative Party.
The Prime Minister insisted yesterday that there was ‘no bad blood, no rancour’ after 81 Conservative MPs defied him to vote in favour of giving people a choice between leaving the EU, staying in, or renegotiating a more distant relationship with Brussels in a referendum.
Number Ten was shocked by the scale of the revolt, which saw half of all Conservative backbenchers either vote against the Government or abstain despite what some called ‘appalling’ attempts to bully them into line.
Mr Cameron’s allies were sent on to the airwaves yesterday to try to offer an olive branch to the rebels. Education Secretary Michael Gove insisted he wanted to see negotiations to win back powers from Brussels within the term of this Parliament and prompted incredulity by claiming the Conservative Party was ‘united as never before’ over the issue of Europe.
‘We are already winning powers back – we need to win more and that process will require careful negotiation,’ Mr Gove said.

‘I think that we should take powers back over employment law. I think that we should take powers back that affect our capacity to grow.
‘There are some specific regulations that govern who we can hire and how we can hire and how long they work for, which actually hold us back.’

But within minutes, Mr Clegg said there was no question of the Government ‘unilaterally trying to kind of grab powers back’.
‘I think it is a monumental distraction from what is, in effect, an economic firestorm on our doorstep to tie ourselves up in knots late at night in Westminster about a treaty or inter-governmental conference that might never happen,’ he told ITV News.
‘Eurosceptics need to be quite careful what they wish for, because if they succeed – and they won’t succeed, as long as I’m in government – to push this country towards the exit sign, let’s be clear: The people that will be damaged are British families, British businesses, British jobs, British communities, and I won’t let that happen.’

Mr Clegg did give some ground – suggesting there was a case for ‘rebalancing the responsibilities between the EU and its member states’ and citing the Common Fisheries Policy as one area in need of reform.
But he insisted the only way to change the EU was by ‘winning the argument, leading the argument and actually persuading other countries’.
Mr Cameron is being warned he will face relentless pressure from rebel MPs to use discussions on changing EU treaties to allow closer fiscal union among countries in the single currency as an opportunity to redefine Britain’s relationship with the EU.

But Germany is understood to be determined do whatever it takes to make sure Britain does not get an opportunity to turn imminent treaty change into an opportunity for repatriation of powers.
The Prime Minister said Europe had long been a difficult issue for the Conservatives and ‘always will be’ but insisted he had no regrets about the handling of this week’s vote.
‘It wouldn’t be right for the country right now to have a great big vote on an in-out referendum,’ he said.
Former shadow home secretary David Davis said the Government’s handling of the issue would increase support for leaving the EU altogether.
‘I don’t want to leave – that would just give them an excuse for protectionism against us,’ he said. ‘But it is very hard to understand what the Government’s European strategy is. They talk about a repatriation of powers but then say the Liberals won’t let us do it.’
Stewart Jackson, who risks losing his post after voting against the Government despite being a ministerial aide, said: ‘It’s pretty unhelpful when the Deputy Prime Minister seeks to disregard what is happening in the eurozone and says that we’re not going to take any powers back.
‘Repatriation of significant powers from Brussels is not just what the Parliamentary Conservative Party want and has been elected upon, but what most people in this country think is right.’