Furious Tory peers tell PM that his plans are ‘impossible to defend’

FORMER Conservative leader Michael Howard yesterday led a growing Tory revolt against the proposal to override parts of Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal.

In a stinging attack on the Government’s approach, Lord Howard accused ministers of showing ‘scant regard’ for Britain’s obligations under international law.

It followed the Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis’s criticism that the internal market Bill would ‘break international law in a very specific and limited way’.

The Government hopes to fast-track the Bill through the Commons in the next fortnight but senior peers warned it would be blocked in the House of Lords.

Former Tory chancellor Lord Lamont, a Brexiteer, said the Government was in a ‘terrible mess’ over the Bill and that Mr Lewis’s words were ‘impossible to defend’.

‘I think the Government will have to think again. I don’t think this is going to get through the Lords in its present form,’ he told BBC’s Radio 4’s PM programme.

Former deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine said there wasn’t a ‘ghost of a chance’ that the Bill would be approved by peers.

He said it was ‘unbelievable that a Conservative government is behaving in this way.’

Lord Howard, a long-standing Brexiteer, said: ‘How can we reproach Russia or China or Iran when their conduct falls below internationally accepted standards, when we are showing such scant regard for our treaty obligations?’ But Ministry of Justice spokesman Lord Keen insisted the Government had ‘not proposed any breach of UK law’. He said: ‘On occasion, tensions can arise between our domestic obligations and our international commitments and we will always seek to resolve these.’

But Lord Howard said: ‘Does he not understand the damage done to our reputation for probity and respect for the rule of the law by those five words uttered by his ministerial colleague in another place on Tuesday? Words which I never thought I would hear uttered by a British minister – far less a Conservative minister.’

Ministers are also facing a potential revolt in the Commons. Sir Bob Neill, chairman of the justice committee, has already indicated he will vote against the legislation.

Yesterday, Tory Sir Roger Gale said: ‘The breaking of international law is not something that can be done on a “limited basis”, you either break the law or you do not.’