David Cameron is to announce a £1.5 billion deal with the French government to develop the next generation of drones to try to convince voters that Britain’s links with the EU benefit its security.
The prime minister will use a summit in France today to warn that leaving the EU risks making Britain weaker and less secure.
He is also expected to invoke the migration crisis in Calais as another reason for Britain to hold on to its EU membership.
Ministers have previously claimed that France would move immigration checks back to the UK side of the border if Britain opted to leave the EU. Downing Street has warned that shifting the border to Dover could result in migrant camps popping up in southeast England overnight.
Speaking before the summit in Amiens today, Mr Cameron said that the two nations were proud allies that worked together to improve security. “Our meeting is an opportunity to discuss how we can work even more closely together to keep our people safe,” he said. “I am convinced that the UK’s membership of the EU gives us greater security and greater capacity to project power globally. In an ever more uncertain world, we gain from our membership of these international organisations.”
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The UK-France summit is the first since November’s terrorist attacks in Paris and Mr Cameron and President Hollande will pledge to fight a “relentless” battle against terrorism by sharing police and security intelligence. Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, Theresa May, the home secretary and Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, will meet their French counterparts during the meeting.
The centrepiece will be the announcement of a project to build a prototype of the next generation of drone. Britain will contribute £750 million, and BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce will be involved.
However Lord Lawson of Blaby, the former chancellor and leading campaigner for Brexit, warned that Britain would become a mere colony of the EU if it failed to cut its links with Brussels. “It may come as a great shock to the little Europeans in our midst, but most of the world, including, significantly, the fastest-growing countries in the world, are not in the European Union,” he told the Lords. “I have little doubt that we would prosper more if we were not in the European Union.
“And even though we have secured an opt-out from political union, we will remain shackled to it — a sort of colonial status.”
Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, said that it was “increasingly clear that the real uncertainty is the future of the EU project”.
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Lord Lamont of Lerwick, the former Tory chancellor, said that he had only just reached his decision to back the campaign to leave the EU. “I once as long ago as 1994 made a speech saying ‘the time may come when we have to choose between a much more politically integrated Europe and leaving’,” he told Daily Politics on BBC Two. “And the way Europe has gone since then I think has adequately fulfilled the warnings I gave then.”
Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who was a cabinet minister under Margaret Thatcher and John Major, criticised Lord Lamont, saying that the Leave campaign’s arguments that every country had access to the EU market was fundamentally flawed.
The British Airline Pilots Association has called for research into what could happen if a drone hit an airliner after a surge in near-miss incidents. The UK Airprox Board investigated 23 near-misses between aircraft and drones in six months last year.