LibDems vow to spearhead fight to stay in EU

LONDON (Reuters) - The Liberal Democrats, Britain's most enthusiastic Europhiles, kick off the fight to stay in the European Union on Monday with a warning that its rivals are dangerously ambivalent about the consequences of leaving. Nick Clegg, the former party leader and coalition partner of Prime Minister David Cameron in the last government, will say the stakes "could not be higher", with a "Brexit" potentially leading to a break-up of the United Kingdom. Britons will vote on the country's future in the 28-member bloc before the end of 2017 in a referendum Cameron promised before last May's election to try to counter the rise of the anti-EU UK Independence Party. The LibDems, who were reduced in that election to only eight lawmakers after 57 in the last parliament, previously could have counted on the opposition Labour Party to back the EU. But Clegg will say the election of left-winger Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader this month has muddied the waters. "I say to Jeremy Corbyn: the EU referendum is simply too important for ambivalence, " he will tell delegates at the party's conference, according to extracts from his speech. Corbyn, who voted to "No" to Britain's membership of the forerunner to the European Union in a 1975 election, said last week that he could not give Cameron a "blank cheque" to renegotiate EU ties ahead of the vote. He shifted his position days later, saying Labour believed Britain should remain in the EU. But if Cameron failed to deliver a "good package or one that reduces the social gains we have previously won in Europe", he said, the party would renegotiate. Clegg will say that if Britain votes to leave the EU, Scottish nationalists, who won 56 out of 59 seats north of the border, would "gleefully grab the opportunity to persuade the people of Scotland to leave the UK as well". A survey by pollster ICM last week showed 43 percent of voters favoured staying in the EU, 40 percent would opt to leave and 17 percent were undecided. "Whether we remain in or out of Europe is an existential question for Britain - if we leave we face an uncertain and isolated future; if we stay in we can lead as a strong European power," Clegg will say. "That's why we must strain very sinew to fight - and win -the referendum." The LibDems' new leader Tim Farron will launch the campaign on Monday in Bournemouth on England's south coast. (Reporting by Paul Sandle; Editing by Tom Heneghan)