The Liberal Democrats will block any attempt by their Tory coalition partners to revive the home secretary’s controversial snooper’s charter, a source close to Nick Clegg said, after it emerged that a group of peers was trying to force the measures through parliament at the last minute.

The warning of a coalition split came as a former Conservative cabinet minister joined campaigners in opposing a plan to insert whole sections of the “discredited” communications data bill into legislation currently before parliament.

“The bottom line is that there isn’t a collective government position. The Tories didn’t win the general election and they can’t pretend that they did,” a senior Lib Dem source told the Guardian.

“Clearly, there is not agreement on this issue and, for that reason, there is not collective responsibility.”

Under the proposals, internet service providers would be required to retain logs of customers’ web histories for a year and hand them over to police and the security services when told to.

They were included in an amendment to the counter-terrorism and security bill tabled by Lord Blair, Lord King, Lord West and the Lib Dem peer Lord Carlile and due to be debated by Lords on Monday.

Theresa May has not openly backed the proposal but, in the aftermath of the Paris terror attacks, she made a renewed call to introduce the measures, which were rejected by MPs in 2012.

Clegg’s opposition adds to a growing campaign to stop the measures being sneaked into law.

“Regardless of the where and how and what, the Liberal Democrats remain opposed to what they are trying to do, full stop,” the senior Lib Dem source said.

“We do not agree with the fundamental principle that national security requires every website visited by every man, woman and child to be stored for a year.”

He accused the peers of simply “cutting and pasting” some of the most controversial measures included in the original snooper’s charter, adding: “This is not the way to make responsible legislation.”

They did so, he said, despite serious concerns about the draft legislation having been raised by the chair of the joint parliamentary select committee that scrutinised the original bill.

Lord Blencathra said he could not support the new bill. In a letter to King, he wrote: “My committee savaged the draft bill and we found fault with nearly every part of it.”

He said there were concerns over the “fundamental question of retaining web logs” and that the bill was “too sweeping” in its powers.

The peers are not believed to have taken issue with the claim that the new measures are simply lifted wholesale from the bill parliament voted down in 2012.

But Carlile did insist that the group made a “deliberate effort to remove the aspects of the draft communications bill that people found unacceptable, such as giving powers to local authorities, revenue and customs or water companies”.

The powers, he added, would be confined to the police and intelligence agencies.

The draft legislation will be debated by the House of Lords, before returning to the Commons for a vote by MPs.