Justice Secretary Chris Grayling’s plans to curtail the powers of the European Court of Human Rights in Britain (ECHR) were branded “unnecessary” and “unworkable” yesterday by Tory former attorney general Dominic Grieve.

Under the proposals published in an eight-page document yesterday, the Tories would effectively issue an ultimatum to Strasbourg that it must accept being merely an “advisory body” — or Britain would withdraw from the system altogether.

The party would also scrap the Human Rights Act introduced by Labour in 1998 to enshrine the European Convention on Human Rights in domestic law, replacing it with a “British Bill of Rights.”

But Mr Grieve said that many of the concerns were based on “misunderstandings” and that there were already moves in train to reform the court from within.

He also dismissed the idea that Britain could be granted a special status while the other states signed up to the convention had to abide by Strasbourg rulings.

“All courts are ultimately human constructs and they will sometimes get things right and sometimes get things wrong,” he said.

“In many cases there is a misunderstanding of what the court does.

“Even the paper which has just been produced by my colleague Chris Grayling includes in it a number of howlers which are simply factually inaccurate.

“One howler is … where it says that the court of human rights in Strasbourg has prevented the imposition of whole-life tariffs on whole-life tariff prisoners in this country.

“It hasn’t. Its judgment never said that.”

This view was shared by Birmingham University law school’s Dr Bharat Malkani.

“Many of the proposals are built on misleading information,” he told the Star.

He cited the claim that the proposals would ensure that ECHR rulings would no

Longer be binding on the British judiciary.

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From P1: “They are not binding now,” he said. “This is scaremongering people into thinking we need this when we don’t.”

He also accused the government of double standards.

“Just days ago Theresa May was talking about the discriminatory stop and search powers,” he said.

“It was the ECHR that found it was discriminatory. The domestic courts said there was nothing wrong with it.

“So May is supporting the ECHR on this, yet is part of a government that wants to leave it. It is inconsistent and complete double standards.”

In addition the idea of a “British” bill of rights did not appear to take into account devolution in Scotland and Northern Ireland, he added.

Amnesty International UK director Kate Allen also condemned the proposals.

“Human rights should not be dragged into Britain’s internal debate on Europe,” she said.

“The potential consequences are dire. The UK is saying to the rest of the world: ‘Pick and choose your human rights’.”