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.”