The unwanted return of Nick Clegg

Few were waiting eagerly for the return of Nick Clegg, who as deputy prime minister went along with Tory austerity policies and failed to stop Brexit, then spent a happy few years in California making millions working for Mark Zuckerberg, a man who looks benevolent only when standing next to Elon Musk.

But now, having trousered an unbelievable £24m plus from his Meta shares (enough to cover quite a few tution fees) the former Lib Dem leader is back, pontificating on the future of the European Union in a long and rambling article in the relaunched Observer. His giant brain has looked at the future and seen that if the EU does not reform it must die.

Clegg’s least surprising idea is that the EU puts too many restrictions on tech companies like Zuckerberg’s Meta, which runs Facebook and Instagram. It is almost as if he is on a retainer.

He says Hungary and Slovakia will have to be chucked out of the EU. Many would argue that we must not abandon millions of Europeans and should encourage them to abandon their devotion to Moscow and be more democratic instead. Others would say the seeds of the EU’s own destruction lie in being able to expel member states against the wishes of their own people if whoever is in charge becomes a frustration. But Nick has decided they should just go.

He says the EU is too weak, that it micromanages too much, and, most importantly, has yet to develop a single market in services or a coordinated capital market. Much of this is true but then the single market by its nature needs micromanaging or it does not work.

Someone has to coordinate all those rules and regulations, check standards and fine those annoying tech companies who want to make billions in Europe but do not pay any tax or follow any of the rules.

He also wants Ukraine to join the EU ASAP, which would be nice if we just ignore the war, its rule of law problems and the fact that Russia and Donald Trump’s America hate the idea.

Clegg’s good ideas are blindingly obvious. A single capital market, a single market in services and better defence coordination have all been proposed by dozens of others, all closer to the action than Nick Clegg and all working at the coal face to try to make them happen.

What sticks in the craw of Clegg’s piece is his lecturing tone. The piece reads like Ursula von der Leyen being confronted by the annoying Harry Enfield character “You Don’t Want to Do It Like That”.

It is just crass for someone who has just spent years in America promoting the very tech giants that now lick Trump’s boots displays to ship up and tell the EU that if they don’t follow his path, they are doomed. Clegg may have earned vast sums from Zuckerberg but his political capital in Europe is zero.

The EU is working out how to reform and adapt to a world where all the old certainties are dead or dying. A herculean task made immeasurably more difficult because it has to do so without the UK, its economy, diplomatic heft, military strength or even its budget contributions.

I imagine it feels those losses sharply but still thinks it can somehow manage to just about cope without being hectored by a failed deputy PM of a former member state, out of power for 10 years and with exactly no influence or power to change anything.