MPs warn voters being ‘conned’ as Brussels keeps plans for EU army secret until after referendum

British voters are being “conned” by Brussels officials who are keeping plans for a European army secret until after the referendum, leading Tories have claimed.

Liam Fox, the former defence secretary who served under David Cameron, told The Telegraph that the ambitions showed the EU is wedded to the “dangerous fantasy” of creating a single defence force.

Another eurosceptic Tory MP said voters were being “deceived” and “hoodwinked” about the true scale of the EU’s drive to create a single army. 

An EU referendum will be a nightmare for Britain. But it has to happen

There is palpable confidence in the Tory party that David Cameron will still be prime minister after the general election. It flows not from any surge in public enthusiasm for the idea of Conservative government, but from a lack of evidence that voters are ready to trust Ed Miliband with power.

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But as a second term in government comes into focus for the Tories, it also brings another spectre from the past: the civil war over Europe, deferral of which has been a defining feature of Cameron’s leadership. The promise to hold a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU has been a modest success. It has not suffocated Ukip, nor even stopped Tory MPs defecting to Nigel Farage’s side. But it has comforted others with the illusion of agreeing on something about which they disagree. The vote may one day rip the Conservative party in half, but on the question of whether that day should come they are strangely united.