Clegg attacks Farage for ‘siding’ with Putin

London Evening Standard/London

Nick Clegg yesterday conceded he had failed to beat Nigel Farage in their first big debate - but claimed he would win the “marathon” battle over Europe.

Launching a fightback, he branded the Ukip leader as “extreme” and “insulting” for appearing to side with Russian leader Vladimir Putin over the annexation of the Crimea.

But asked if he felt he had lost, Clegg did not disagree. “Clearly a lot of people didn’t agree with me but, look, this is a marathon not a sprint,” he replied during his weekly LBC 97.3 phone-in show.

“For years and years you’ve had misinformation and deeply misleading facts put about by people like Nigel Farage, unchallenged. Of course I’m not going to be able to reverse that in one hour.”

Farage was celebrating yesterday morning after snap polls suggested the public felt he won the hour-long debate. But commentators were more evenly divided, with many saying Clegg appeared to catch up in the second half and that Farage looked angry.

One of Farage’s most uncomfortable moments came when he blamed the European Union for the plight of Ukrainian protesters in Kiev. “We should hang our heads in shame,” Farage said. “We have given a false series of hopes to a group of people in the western Ukraine and so geed up were they that they actually toppled their own elected leader. That provoked Putin, and I think the European Union does have blood on its hands in Ukraine.”

Clegg condemned the remarks yesterday morning, saying: “It shows quite how extreme people can be like Nigel Farage when their loathing of the European Union becomes so all-consuming that they even end up siding with Vladimir Putin in order to make their point.

“It is really insulting to those people who, in Kiev, were simply standing up for values which we should share.”

Clegg warned leaving the European Union would have “massive consequences” for Britain “for generations to come”. He said that to “simply pull up the drawbridge” would be “devastating” for the UK and “destroy jobs for everyone in our country”.

Former Ukip leader Lord Pearson claimed Farage had won easily. “I think his arguments resonate with the British people,” he said.

Paddy Ashdown, a former leader of Clegg’s Liberal Democrat party said Farage’s words were “extremely dangerous”. “His argument can only give comfort to Putin’s view of the world in the middle of an international crisis and provide excuses for him in the face of what is by any standards an egregious breach of international law.”

Andrew Lansley, a Conservative member of Cameron’s cabinet, demanded Farage withdraw his comments. “I think it’s outrageous that Ukip should be behaving as apologists for President Putin,” Lansley told parliament.

When asked about Farage’s comments, a spokesman for Cameron said the prime minister was convinced that responsibility for the Ukraine crisis lay with Russia and its Crimean supporters.