British Prime Minister David Cameron has been told by his own party members to scrap the gay marriage bill.

According to According to British newspaper The Telegraph, former defense minister Sir Gerald Howarth urged Cameron to drop the gay marriage bill in order to appease Tory members considered at risk of switching support to leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) Nigel Farage.

Farage said in an interview with The Daily Mail that same-sex marriage isn’t his priority, and he considers himself more of a real Tory than Cameron.

Farage said: ‘He’s not a Tory, he’s a socialist. Tory voters feel much closer to me than their own leader.’

‘His priorities are gay marriage, foreign aid, and wind farms. They’re not mine.’

Tory advice for Cameron went beyond gay marriage. He was also told to freeze budgets for overseas aid, cut immigration and bow out of the European Convention on Human Rights.

British paper The Daily Mail published today that Cameron has dropped his pledge to fix foreign aid spending at 0.7% GDP, in a move to placate some Tory party members who are critical of Britain offering foreign aid while domestic services suffer.

Though some gay rights activists warned as recently as last month that the House of Lords might veto the gay marriage bill, Cameron remains dedicated to passing the bill. In February Cameron said he was ‘proud’ the government pushed the gay marriage measure forward.

He said: ‘The great thing about last night’s vote is that two gay people who love each other will now be able to get married, and I think that is an important advance.

‘I think we should be promoting marriage, rather than looking at any other way of weakening it.’



