Dominic Lawson

Not for the first time, Nick Clegg — sorry, that should be Sir Nicholas Clegg — has let down his admirers. to the consternation of those who, like him, have been campaigning to ‘stop Brexit’, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats has abandoned them to join Facebook.

Specifically, he starts work today as the social media company’s ‘head of global affairs’. that means the former deputy prime minister will be paid millions to lobby governments and public opinion to see things Facebook’s way.

We are told that Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s dominant shareholder and chief executive, spent months ‘wooing’ Clegg to take up this job offer. Far be it from me to question Zuckerberg’s business acumen, but if he thinks the British people would put any faith in what Clegg says (about almost anything), then the California-based billionaire must have been on the wacky baccy.

Misjudgment

Because Clegg — having achieved ephemeral acclaim during the 2010 General Election as the leader of a party that would ‘keep its promises, unlike the two old parties’ — became a byword for betrayal. the Liberal Democrats’ principal campaign pledge — signed personally by every one of its MPs — was to scrap student fees: this was pitched to win the support of younger voters and it was mightily effective in constituencies with high student populations.

then, within months of joining government, Clegg instructed his MPs to back the Conservatives in . . . tripling those same university tuition fees. Clegg’s misjudgment — to put it politely — led to a cataclysmic drop in support for his party by those same young voters. Eventually, he issued a much- satirised apology on Youtube, saying how sad he was about it.

this was demolished by David Cameron’s former policy director at No 10, James o’Shaughnessy, who tweeted: ‘Clegg [is] talking crap on student fees. He wasn’t between “a rock and a hard place”. I was in the room when he decided to vote for it. He was keen.’

Not only was this a principal reason (not the only one) for the annihilation of the Liberal Democrats in the 2015 General Election, it contributed to Nick Clegg’s ignominious loss of his own seat, in the university constituency of Sheffield Hallam, last year. He’s been in need of a paid job ever since: he’s certainly got a stonker of a salary now.

to be fair, Clegg has not been idle since the electors of Sheffield handed out his electoral P45. He has written a book called How to Stop Brexit, a manifestation of his revulsion at the decision of the British people in a referendum to leave the European Union, which he has been determined to overturn.

As with other campaigners in that cause, Clegg argues that the British people had been fooled. Well, referendum campaigns, like general elections, involve propaganda and phoney figures on both sides. But the democrat accepts the outcome. You might think Clegg, above all, would accept that: after all, he was the first leader of a mainstream political party to advocate a referendum on whether Britain should remain in the EU.

ten years ago, Liberal Democrats leaflets were scattered across the length and breadth of the land, declaring: ‘It’s time for a REAL referendum on Europe.’ And on each was a big photo of Nick Clegg, next to the words ‘Lib Dem Leader Nick Clegg: It’s time to give the British people a real referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union. Sign our petition today.’

When the then-Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, refused Clegg’s demand for a parliamentary vote on his idea of an in-or-out EU referendum, the Lib Dem leader was so furious that he led his MPs on a stagey flounce out of the chamber in protest.

In the end, of course, Clegg got his wish for an in- or- out referendum, when the Conservative-led coalition government in which he served as deputy prime minister years later pushed through the necessary enabling legislation. When it eventually took place, his side — to his evident disbelief — lost.

And suddenly, it transpires this was not the ‘real’ referendum after all. No, that was all a terrible mistake. the ‘ real’ referendum, designed to overturn the result of the very one Clegg demanded, is promoted as the ‘ People’s Vote’ — presumably to distinguish it from the one in 2016, which must have involved only non-sentient beings or zombies.

Thwart

Clegg was not among the hundreds of thousands of campaigners for the ‘People’s Vote’ who marched in gloriously sunny London on Saturday. Presumably he was too busy preparing for his new Facebook job starting today or, indeed, applying for his ‘Green Card’ — the far from automatic permit for which immigrants are required to apply if they wish to work in the U.S. (not at all like the EU free movement system of which Clegg is such an advocate).

Instead, he could be found pontificating in the pages of the German newspaper Die Welt, in a joint article with former prime minister tony Blair and former Conservative deputy PM Michael Heseltine under the headline: ‘Blair, Clegg and Heseltine: we need another EU referendum’. I raised this with a friend of mine, who has spent some time on government business in the EU over recent months. I remarked to him that this piece was clearly intended to convince German readers that the British political establishment will do what it can to thwart the result of the 2016 referendum, but that surely the Germans must realise these three authors carry no weight whatsoever in the UK, being regarded here as has-beens, discredited, or both.

No, he replied: in the councils of Brussels, and in Berlin, the three are taken very seriously and such an article is read as evidence that there really is a good chance the British establishment will force a second referendum, to keep the UK in the EU. And, he added, it encourages Brussels and Berlin to be even more implacable in their negotiating stance, to add to the attractions of such a ‘reconsideration’.

In fact, it was all along the view in the Chancelleries of Europe that the British people would discover what the peoples of Holland, Denmark and Ireland learned: that if they vote in a referendum against the way that the European Commission and the established parties want (remember that the leadership of all three main British political parties were for Remain), they will be made to vote again until they come up with the right answer.

Weakness

that view in Brussels will be strengthened by a disgraceful speech in Salisbury last week by the former head of MI6, Sir John Sawers. this ex-Foreign office man (he didn’t work his way up the intelligence service, unlike previous occupants of that job) declared his support for a second referendum. And he asserted it was only because the UK had been ‘weakened’ by Brexit that Russia had dared to attempt to assassinate the British double agent Sergei Skripal: ‘Russia was willing to treat Britain with contempt.’

So how does Sawers explain the fact that the same Russian government used equally deadly poison to assassinate another defector, Alexander Litvinenko, in London in 2006 — ten years before the Brexit vote?

Perhaps this unprecedented intervention by an ex-MI6 chief is designed to impress on Berlin or Brussels that the UK is contrite at its voters’ impertinence in wanting to leave the institutions of the EU: but Brexit supporters should be heartened that such an ill-thought- out argument is the best that a former so-called ‘intelligence’ chief can muster.

Indeed, it is a glaring weakness of the forces arguing for a ‘People’s Vote’ that there is no one among its leading figures who commands widespread respect. Its main spokesman is Blair’s former spin doctor-in- chief, Alastair Campbell; but the propaganda maestro behind the ‘dodgy dossier’ on Iraq endlessly complaining that Brexit was based on a false prospectus is almost beyond satire.

For similar reasons, those calling for a second referendum should actually be grateful that Nick Clegg is abandoning their cause. Everything he touches turns to ashes. If you have shares in Facebook, sell.