Nick Clegg claims Government has gone 'well beyond' mandate on Brexit

The Government has gone "well beyond" the mandate given by the British people in the EU referendum, according to Nick Clegg.

The former deputy prime minister told Sky's All Out Politics that Prime Minister Theresa May had taken the "hardest of hard interpretations" of the outcome of June's vote.

Mr Clegg, who is now the Lib Dems' Europe spokesman, urged Mrs May to "plot a more moderate course towards Brexit".

He was speaking ahead of a debate in Parliament on the Government's bill to trigger Article 50, the formal start of the Brexit process.

The PM will be hoping to avoid a potential Conservative rebellion over how Parliament will be allowed to vote on the final Brexit deal she agrees with Brussels.

She has warned would-be Tory rebels they will be going against the democratic will of the British people if they side with the opposition and put constraints on the Government in the bill.

Mr Clegg said he would be voting against the bill, but denied he was going against the will of the electorate.

He told Sky's Adam Boulton: "I personally have not in any way changed my view that the long-term interests of this country are best served in the European Union.

"I think it would have been wrong for Parliament last week to have blocked Brexit altogether.

"What we voted against is something which the Government does not have a mandate for, which is to impose a hard Brexit, one which yanks us out of the single market as well as the rest of the political institutions of the European Union - the Government has no mandate to do that."

The Lib Dem position on Brexit is that there should be a second referendum on the eventual exit deal, something which Mr Clegg described as "essential".

He said the ramifications of leaving the EU meant it should not be left to the "whimsical subjective interpretations" of those inside Downing Street.

Criticising the Government's approach, Mr Clegg said: "I think the Government is now operating well beyond the mandate it was given by the British people.

"The British people did not give a mandate to this Government to make them poorer.

"The British people did not give a mandate for the British Government to go round threatening to turn us into some freewheeling, low regulation, offshore Dubai."

He also accused Brexit backers of "rewriting history".

"If you listened to some of the splenetic stuff from the Brexiteers, you'd imagine that the whole country voted for Brexit with the exception of Ken Clarke and myself," Mr Clegg said.

"It was a much more evenly divided outcome and I think as a Prime Minister the responsible thing, particularly when Scotland, Northern Ireland, our capital city London all voted otherwise, is to plot a more moderate course towards Brexit."