Nigel Farage’s claims about an EU army are as fictional as that vanishing £350 million So here it is. Merry Christmas! When we’re not thinking about Brexit, everybody is having fun. Except, it seems, for […]

So here it is. Merry Christmas! When we’re not thinking about Brexit, everybody is having fun. Except, it seems, for Nigel Farage, who was in typically splenetic form when he took to the airwaves to get my attention last month. “Are you listening, Mr Clegg?” he barked into his microphone during one of his radio phone-in shows.

‘Every nation fiercely guards their right to send their own soldiers into battle’

The reason for his spleen? Mr Farage wants me to accept that it was wrong to claim, as I did in my televised debate with him in 2014, that the prospect of an EU army, airforce and navy was “total fantasy”. He is supported by an army of angry folk on Twitter and the Brexit-obsessed tabloids who jump at every alleged plot being hatched in Brussels.

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A Brexit bus-level fiction

There is a whiff of desperation – and a crude attempt at distraction – in Nigel Farage’s claim: he used his radio rant to insist that the possible creation of an EU Army was a far bigger deal than “some numbers on the side of a bus that may have been slightly over-inflated”.

Tell that to the millions of voters who were lied to by the Brexit campaign. Farage’s claims about the impending arrival of an EU army is about as fictional as that vanishing £350 million.

That hasn’t stopped the concept of a pan-European military force being a particular obsession of hard-line eurosceptics for decades. The latest bout of outrage was triggered after Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy high representative, recently welcomed a document in which 23 of the EU member states – two more have signed up since – set out a series of commitments on further defence and security cooperation.

The 13 page paper expands on an initiative known as Permanent Structured Military Cooperation (PESCO). While this would see participating countries agree to increase their totals of defence spending and cooperate more deeply on projects such as an EU medical command, maritime surveillance, and cyber security, decisions on deployment would, crucially, remain in the hands of national governments.

‘The EU is already playing an important peacekeeping role in the Balkans’

It is inconceivable that member states would sign away that power to the EU – every nation fiercely guards their right to send their own soldiers into battle.

EU troops in starred fatigue? Not so much

However, when Mogherini declared that a “European Union of Security and Defence” was ”not a dream anymore, it is reality coming true”, her words clearly provoked in Farage’s excitable imagination visions of crack EU troops, clad in blue and yellow-starred fatigues and marching to the strains of “Ode to Joy” across the parade grounds of Europe’s capitals.

The rather less dramatic reality, however, is that the proposals merely build on the present arrangements, with the EU already playing an important peacekeeping role in the Balkans, previously sending troops to the Central African Republic and running an anti-piracy operation off the coast of Somalia.

‘With a little imagination and generosity, Theresa May could use this post-Brexit focus on defence to Britain’s advantage’

Of course, it is hardly surprising that Ms Mogherini was enthused by an increased willingness to integrate EU-wide defence policy: she realises, as do the majority of European leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron, that such moves are essential if Europe is to respond to the geopolitical challenges of the 21st century.

Trump’s danger to the EU

Not so Nigel Farage, who was so giddily love-struck by Donald Trump’s election victory that he failed to notice that the romance was already fading from the so-called “special relationship”.

With his protectionist America First mantra and a commitment to Nato that is shaky at best, it is clear that President Trump feels no duty to guarantee Europe’s security in the way his predecessors did. Yet with a belligerent Vladimir Putin just across its eastern border, the continued threat of ISIS and tensions rising across the Middle East, Donald Trump’s erratic foreign policy could hardly come at more dangerous time for the EU.

Our continent is facing threats which don’t respect borders, so clearly any sensible government should be looking at ways to enhance European defence arrangements. In fact, with a little imagination and generosity, Theresa May could use this post-Brexit focus on defence – currently led by France and Germany – to Britain’s advantage. After all, we possess military and diplomatic clout that is unrivalled by any EU state other than France.

Sharing for security

‘Without the UK, the rest of the EU will continue to work together’

Just in case Mr Farage’s blood pressure rises too fast, I am absolutely not calling for Mrs May to conscript British soldiers into an EU army. I am simply arguing that a greater sharing of military research, increased policy coordination between Berlin, London and Paris, and British support for the emerging foreign-policy machinery of the EU is a clear example of how pooling our sovereignty can help increase our power and security.

Without the UK, the rest of the EU will continue to work together. This is the other blindingly obvious flaw in Mr Farage’s argument. Brexit will diminish this country’s influence in shaping the future of Europe’s defence arrangements; it will also take away the veto which Britain could have – and would have – wielded should the pace of integration and cooperation alarm us.

So he, and all those who cry panic at the non-existent prospect of a European army should really be asked a simple question. If the price of taking back control is to make the United Kingdom a more vulnerable and less secure nation, then is it a price worth paying? Are you listening, Mr Farage?

@Nick_Clegg