ALEX DEAN AND TOM CLARK
In their darkest hour, pro-Europeans are looking for someone to help them keep the faith. The former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg should be well placed to be that person. Half Dutch, with a Spanish wife and six languages to his name, Clegg is the embodiment of a modern European man. He spent his early career working for Commissioner Leon Brittan in Brussels, and was then in the European Parliament. His political connections stretch across the continent, enabling him to understand the view from other European capitals.
When we sat down with him by the Thames, however, Clegg sounded like his faith was faltering. The European project is battling, as he put it, “existential challenges”, which could “of course” cause it to collapse entirely. Eight wearing years have passed since the cheerful young Clegg wowed the nation in the election debates. But the tone of anxiety is not the product of those grinding and sometimes humiliating years of coalition, or even the more recent experience of losing his seat at the 2017 election.