MPs face attacks amid party leader Nick Clegg's no-show for prime minister's Commons statement on EU veto
Liberal Democrat MPs made frosty but restrained contributions to Monday's Commons statement, attempting dialogue with a prime minister they feel has now obstructed their party's traditional pro-European agenda.
Contending with the absence of their party leader, Nick Clegg, from the Commons appearance by David Cameron, Lib Dems were goaded by some Tory backbenchers, even though the Tory whips had sent out a message to avoid triumphalism. The Conservative MP for Shipley, Philip Davies, called the Lib Dems "lickspittles" and Mid Bedfordshire's Nadine Dorries accused Clegg of being "cowardly and negative" in his attacks on the prime minister's tactics in Brussels. Cameron said both Dorries and Davies had "taken it a little too far".
Jo Swinson, Lib Dem MP for East Dunbartonshire, said the climate change summit in Durban showed what could be achieved by working with other countries. Wasn't this better than "rushing for the exit", she asked?
In the Lords Lib Dems described their peers as being in "open revolt". Former party leader Lord Ashdown appeared to suggest remedying UK policy towards Europe could have implications for the lifetime of the coalition government.
Ashdown asked the Tory leader of the upper house, Lord Strathclyde: "Will you tell us how we intend to [get the UK back being 'relevant to the EU'] and do you realise how much depends for this country, and I might say for this government, on our success in doing so?"
Earlier in the day the former chief secretary to the Treasury, David Laws, made more emollient noises than his leader had made on Sunday, appearing on BBC Breakfast where he reverted to the more limited position Clegg had adopted on Friday morning, blaming French "villains" for putting the prime minister in a difficult position. "It seems as if many of the other eurozone nations didn't really understand Britain's negotiation position, and it seems to many of us that France took a deliberate decision to ignore the quite reasonable demands of the UK and perhaps actively seek to exclude the UK from the core of European Union countries."
As the deputy prime minister was taking the rather extraordinary step of absenting himself from a parliamentary debate, his chief big hitters took to the airwaves to smooth the situation. Laws said the difference between his party and the Conservatives was about the "tactical position" taken. He said: "The difference really between the parties isn't one about what the objectives of these talks were from the UK perspective, it is a disagreement about the tactical position that we got ourselves into as a consequence of not having other allies in the European Union who we can rely upon.
"The exercise of the veto has potentially put us in a position where we are one against 26, so we risk having the rules for the City and business set by other EU nations without our participation. That is why it's not just the Lib Dems, but it's many people in the City and business who are worried about whether we have protected our national interest, which we both agree must come first."
Former Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell told BBC2's Daily Politics it was ridiculous for people to suggest David Cameron had "deliberately walked into the negotiations without a friend" anywhere in Europe.
Later Campbell welcomed Cameron's statement that belonging to the EU was in the national interest and said he hoped Cameron would get this message through to members of his party.
Simon Hughes, the Lib Dem deputy leader, made clear his party would resist Eurosceptic Tory backbenchers to ensure that Britain retains a "constructive" approach to Europe: "There is no risk to the coalition. We came to an agreement in the national interest. Liberal Democrats and Tories – not natural allies – came to an agreement because we knew the country needed us to sort out the economy. That's why we did so.
"We are committed to that and it's a five-year plan, but it says very explicitly that we will be constructive about Europe and that means we will have to face down the people from the Tory backbenches who believe that being constructive about Europe is the wrong thing to do and we have to show that we are going to be a secure and positive player in the European Union.
"If not, we are at risk and the recovery of the economies of Europe is at risk."