Cameron could be as bad as Putin, says former Cabinet minister

David Cameron risks comparisons with Russian President Vladimir Putin if he goes ahead with plans to allow Parliament to veto rulings by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), according to former Attorney General Dominic Grieve.

According to The Times (£), Cameron is reportedly planning to make the proposal a centrepiece of his Autumn conference speech, in an effort to win over Tory backbenchers and UKIP voters. Grieve has had a long-term opposition to the idea, with many suggesting it is what cost him his job in last week’s reshuffle, and has made public his concerns in order to try and avert “a legal road crash”.

Grieve said:

“What actually is being suggested is not that we will leave the ECHR, but that we will announce for our manifesto that we will pass primary legislation to use parliament to prevent the government from implementing its international obligations, except when parliament rules when we should.

“The inference is that when the UK government doesn’t like something that the court’s done it’ll just use parliament to not implement what it has signed up to. Of all the ideas I have heard about, that strikes me as just about the worst of all. It may appear superficially attractive, but it is effectively driving a coach and horses through international legal obligations, behaving in a way that can only be described as anarchic. It creates massive uncertainty and it risks a legal road crash.”

Grieve’s most damning remarks came in comparing Cameron to Putin. The respected lawyer and MP said:

“It’s not dissimilar from Putin using the Duma to ratify his annexation of the Crimea. Putin will say, well it’s now lawful; the Duma has said so.”

Considering the current frosty relations between the two leaders, it’s likely that will strike a chord.