Canterbury and Whitstable MP Julian Brazier says the European Union is reducing Britain’s security and putting its troops in danger.

The Conservative, who is a defence minister and former paratrooper, made the incendiary remarks as the EU debate intensifies ahead of the June 23 in/out referendum.

He blamed the EU for provoking Russia's invasion of the Ukraine in 2014 and accused Brussels bureaucrats of interfering in the British Army’s training exercises.

“I believe, as a former soldier and a serving Defence Minister, that the EU makes the people of our country less safe,” Mr Brazier said during a speech at the Vote Leave campaign's headquarters in London.

He described how EU rules on driving limits hamper soldiers’ ability to properly prepare for warfare: “Exhausted drivers are a hazard in peacetime but sending people to war without training for the stress and exhaustion of combat exposes them to a much worse wartime risk.”

Mr Brazier’s position puts him sharply at odds with party leader David Cameron and his immediate boss, defence supremo Michael Fallon, who have both argued that the EU bolsters the safety of member states with joint counter-terror initiatives and information sharing between security services.

But in his speech to the Veterans for Britain campaign, Mr Brazier blamed the EU foreign policy for igniting hostilities between Russia and its western neighbour, the Ukraine.

He said: “It is all very well for western leaders to cry for a rules-based international order but I believe that through this route, the EU got into the dangerous position of provoking the Russians and did so without the military means to defend its will.

“The EU poked the bear where it hurt and did so with a pretty feeble stick and it was Ukrainian citizens who paid the price in Russia’s predictably brutal reaction.

“The EU’s blunders gave Putin the excuse he was looking for to invade the Ukraine. This is one more example of how the EU’s foreign policy very often makes this country and its allies less safe.”

In a separate development on Saturday, south-east England Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan invited the public to “serve me with my P45” by voting to quit the EU.

In an article for the Daily Mail, he said that on his first day of work in 1999 he was offered unconditional grants of money and travel expense reimbursements far in excess of the actual cash he had spent.

“The expenses are a neat demonstration of the gap between theoretical ideals and practice,” Mr Hannan said.

“The way in which MEPs are remunerated is one small example of how, rather than being pure, the EU is often, in the exact sense, corrupting — that is, it makes otherwise good people behave in bad ways.

“What is true of the MEPs is equally true of the many giant corporations, mega-charities, think-tanks, professional associations and lobbyists who make a living out of the Brussels system.

“These groups are, as you might expect, the Praetorian Guard of the Remain campaign.

“For their executives, staying in the EU is not about sovereignty or democracy. It’s about mortgages and school fees.

“For Britain as a whole, though, there’s little doubt that we’ll be better off out.”