Iain Duncan Smith's claims about the EU make no sense, Ken Clarke says

The Work and Pensions Secretary had argued that EU made terrorist attacks more likely

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith (Getty)

Iain Duncan Smith’s claim that Britain is more vulnerable to terrorist attack within the European Union does not make sense, a Conservative grandee has said.

Ken Clarke, the Tories’ arch-pro-European, said Mr Duncan Smith’s view that the EU made Britain less safe was a “fringe argument” that few would support.

Mr Duncan Smith, a former Tory leader, had claimed that “the lack of any control of our borders” meant the UK was easier terrorist target.

But Mr Clarke argued that the security services and police benefited from crime information sharing within the EU.

“I don’t think Iain [Duncan Smith] was able to explain why on earth he said, presumably off-the-cuff, why we would be in more danger,” Mr Clarke told the BBC’s Newsnight programme.

“I just don’t understand that. The idea that we’re going to introduce a huge range of border checks and immigration checks on anybody flying here from Germany and – that makes us safer than the present arrangement which are very much supported by the people who have the job of protecting us day by day – is, I think, a slightly fringe argument.

“I don’t think you’ll find many eurosceptics pursuing that.”

Former justice secretary Ken Clarke is strongly pro-European (GETTY)

Mr Clarke, a former Justice Secretary under the 2010 Coalition, went to accuse Mr Duncan Smith of having made the Tories “unelectable” during the last rebellion on Europe in the 1990s.

“Iain was, unofficially, the chief whip of the Maastricht rebels – and the tensions inside the party that were caused by the Maastricht rebellion damaged the electability of the Major government. It made us unelectable in 1997,” he told the same programme.

The grandee however said the party had since then operated well and the he hoped the Europe Union referendum debate could be conducted amicably.

Mr Duncan Smith defended his claims about terrorist attacks on the same programme. He said the UK would be better able to stop people who appeared “suspicious” outside the EU.

“If we [were to] feel that someone is not what we consider to be a reasonable individual we can refuse entry. We can’t do that now,” he said.

This weekend Mr Cameron announced that Britain would hold its in-out referendum on membership of the European Union on 23 June of this year.

The vote follows a renegotiation of the terms of membership of the EU by the Prime Minister.

The PM has granted his Cabinet colleagues permission to campaign on opposite sides of the referendum – an unusual approach to government collective responsibility.