Senior Tories are telling David Cameron he must abandon a “deeply offensive” threat to withdraw from the European convention on human rights if he is to win support for his plans to repeal the Human Rights Act.

Wide-ranging snooper's charter to extend powers of security services Read more

As the government confirmed in the Queen’s speech that it had put on hold plans to replace the act with a British bill of rights, senior party figures called for a major rewriting of the Tory proposals that were drawn up last year. These said that Britain should withdraw from the convention if parliament failed to secure the right to veto judgments from the European court of human rights.

The message to Downing Street came as the Queen said in her 62nd speech to parliament that the government would simply “bring forward proposals for a British bill of rights”. The employment minister, Priti Patel, said the government would take its time to do things “properly”.

The decision to delay the repeal of the Human Rights Act risked overshadowing the principal measure in the Queen’s speech: a bill to permit the first referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU since 1975. The bill, which will be published on Thursday as the prime minister embarks on a tour of European capitals to begin the process of outlining his renegotiation plans, will confirm that the government has accepted the advice of the Electoral Commission on the referendum question.

The bill will suggest that voters should be asked: “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?” This contrasts with the question in the Tory private member’s bill in the last parliament which asked: “Do you think that the United Kingdom should be a member of the European Union?” The commission had suggested that this question risked confusing some voters who might not have realised that the UK is already a member of the EU.

The prime minister will intensify his lobbying of EU leaders, before a summit in Brussels next month, when he meets his Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte over lunch on Thursday in The Hague followed by talks at the Elysée Palace with the French president, François Hollande. On Friday, he will meet his Polish counterpart, Ewa Kopacz, in Warsaw before flying to Berlin for talks with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.

The Guardian view on the Queen’s speech: it all comes back to Europe | Editorial Read more

Cameron, who said he would “legislate straight away” to introduce the referendum bill, was more cautious on plans to repeal the Human Rights Act which have been delayed after running into trouble on a series of fronts. Senior Tories have said that the prime minister will face a crippling rebellion unless he drops the threat, outlined last October by the former justice secretary Chris Grayling, to withdraw from the European convention on human rights if a series of changes were rejected.

One senior Tory said: “If the prime minister wants these plans to work then he has got to remove the deeply offensive threat to withdraw from the ECHR. There is no way the Conservatives can propose that – we wrote the convention for heaven’s sake. Think of David Maxwell Fyfe [the future Tory lord chancellor the Earl of Kilmuir who drafted the convention]. It is very simple. These plans will only pass if the prime minister wins the support of David Davis and Ken Clarke.”

Michael Gove, the new justice secretary who is expected to outline his plans for the new British bill of rights in the autumn, regards the Grayling document as a starting point. Gove is making it clear that he is bound by the Tory manifesto which says the party will scrap the HRA and replace it with the bill of rights, which will “remain faithful to the basic principles of human rights which we signed up to in the original European convention on human rights”. But he is also saying he is not bound by the Grayling document.

Dominic Grieve, the former attorney general, led a group of senior Tories who warned of the dangers of withdrawing from the convention or even of distancing the UK from the document drawn up in the wake of the second world war. Grieve told MPs: “If we are in fact going to dilute those rights, and present the British public with something which is in fact the convention shorn of some of the protections it affords the citizens, then the consequences for the convention will be catastrophic. Other countries which have previously because of our leverage on them been willing to improve their human rights will cease to do it and one of the most powerful tools for improving human rights will be irrevocably damaged and I find it impossible to see how that can be in our national interest.”

Andrew Mitchell, the former Tory chief whip who is leading negotiations to try and broker a deal between the government and the rebels, told MPs: “The government is absolutely right to proceed with caution on the human rights legislation as outlined today. I have to say that I never thought a British government, let alone a Conservative one, would ever have thought of withdrawing from the convention for which, of course, we were responsible.”

The Queen’s speech also set out plans to introduce an investigatory powers bill that is far more wide-ranging than expected, including an extension of the powers of the security services in response to the surveillance disclosures by whistleblower Edward Snowden.



The prime minister signalled his plans for the Queen’s speech at the first meeting of the 1922 Committee after the election, when he waved a copy of the Tory manifesto. The 26 bills, which include plans for a tax lock to block rises in VAT, income tax and national insurance and the extension of free childcare, adhere closely to the manifesto.



Lord Lawson of Blaby, the former Conservative chancellor who has acted as something of a mentor to George Osborne, was highly critical of the tax lock. Lawson told the World at One on BBC Radio 4: “I don’t think it is a good idea to restrict the chancellor of the exchequer’s freedom of manoeuvre in this way. Nobody knows what economic conditions are going to be like, nobody knows what world conditions are going to be like. The public expenditure has to be financed. This was clearly done for electoral purposes, not for good government.”Other key bills in the Queen’s speech include:

No income tax for those working 30 hours a week on the minimum wage.

The extension of right-to-buy to housing association tenants.

Further Scottish devolution and measures that will give English MPs more say over laws that only affect England.

A counter-extremism bill to tackle radicalisation.

A blanket ban on so-called legal highs.

An increase in free childcare for three- and four-year-olds, to 30 hours a week.

Reform of strike laws to require a higher turnout of union members.

Despair, and a little hope, at the Queen’s speech | Letters Read more

Cameron said his legislative programme would mean “wherever you live, you can have the chance of a good education, a decent job, a home of your own and the peace of mind that comes from being able to raise a family and enjoy a secure retirement”.