ONLY two months ago, a gaggle of military and foreign affairs chiefs were warning us that leaving the EU would damage Britain’s role in Nato and the world.

According to five former secretaries-general of Nato, “Brexit would undoubtedly lead to a loss of British influence, undermine Nato and give succour to the West’s enemies.”

Leaving the EU would mean “poisoning relations with our allies, abandoning vital security tools and surrendering control and influence over the world around us,” electors were informed by New Labourite ex-home secretary Lord Clarke.

In a bizarre speech delivered, appropriately enough, in the British Museum, Prime Minister David Cameron himself insisted that the EU was a “vital reinforcement” to Nato and that Britain’s departure would “weaken solidarity and the unity of the West as a whole.”

Yet, for all the Chicken Licken squawks of doom, the Nato summit in Warsaw at the weekend passed off pretty much as normal — unfortunately.

There were the usual belligerent noises about Russia, promises of an extra 650 British troops to Poland and Estonia and boasts from Cameron about how much Britain spends in support of Nato, as the US-led alliance continues its encirclement of Russia and China by land, sea and air.

Indeed, it appears to be proof of President Vladimir Putin’s expansionist aggression that Russia persists in placing the country’s borders right next to US and Nato military bases.

What was new, however, was Cameron’s announcement that the renewal of Britain’s nuclear weapons system will be debated in the House of Commons on July 18.

The Prime Minister offered no reason for this sudden announcement, beyond noting that Trident renewal featured in his party’s general election manifesto last year.

One might have thought that a matter of such magnitude would best be dealt with by his successor as Tory leader and prime minister.

But that would be missing a trick, which would never do for a trickster who must surely wish he had missed his last one.

Cameron’s intention is clear. He hopes to exploit the division in Labour’s ranks at Westminster, between those who support Trident renewal at a cost of £180 billion or more and those who — like Jeremy Corbyn — don’t believe it can ever be justified to threaten or commit the mass murder of millions of civilians.

But far from deepening Labour’s internal leadership crisis, a vote on Trident could help resolve it all the more decisively in favour of Corbyn.

The anti-socialist plotters in the Parliamentary Labour Party will have to expose themselves. In particular, would-be leader Angela Eagle will have to confirm her positon as a gung-ho hawk who backs weapons of mass destruction just as enthusiastically as she supported the bombing of Iraq and Syria.

Light relief should be provided by Tim Farron, chief pimple on the Lib Dem rump. He must be given the floor to explain why his party wants to replace only two or three of the four submarines in the Trident fleet, as a “step down the nuclear ladder.”

That would mean threatening to kill only six or nine million civilians in an all-out strike on Russian cities, say, instead of 12 million.

That might salve Farron’s Christian conscience, but many people of every faith and none will deplore its moral bankruptcy.