The Conservatives plan a huge cull of civil servants in the Ministry of Defence, aimed at making a 25% saving in the UK military budget without cutting the number of frontline troops.

Liam Fox, the Shadow Defence Secretary, told his party conference yesterday that he had asked civil servants to draw up plans to massively reduce the MoD bureaucracy as part of Tory plans to cut overall Whitehall budgets by a third.

He said: “We now have 99,000 in the army and 85,000 civilians in the MoD. Some things will have to change and believe me, they will.”

Labour and the Conservatives are committed to a strategic defence review, but Dr Fox said that would be tainted by the toxic legacy of procurement failure and a funding “black hole” that would mean a £16bn overrun in costs in the next 10 years.

Dr Fox also ruled out an early withdrawal from Afghanistan, telling the audience that abandoning the wartorn country too soon would be a “shot in the arm” for global jihad.

“We cannot afford a failed state to once again become a base from which international terrorists plan and launch attacks against us,” he said. “And we cannot afford the instability and danger a failing Pakistan would bring – a Pakistan with 180 million people and nuclear weapons.” He added that a Conservative government would not abandon Britain’s nuclear deterrent.

Earlier William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, spelled out a “distinctive” British foreign policy that would advance the national interest in the EU and with the United States.

Mr Hague tackled the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty head on but did not clarify what a Tory government would do if, as is likely, the treaty is ratified by all 27 EU members before the General Election.

“Let us be clear on the reasons for our opposition to the Lisbon Treaty and our call for a referendum,” said Mr Hague. “It is against the spirit of the age; it diminishes our ability to pursue our own global relationships; and in its lack of accountability and legitimacy it goes against our fundamental belief that people should be led and governed with their consent.”