DOMINIC Grieve put his head above the parapet to oppose his party this morning, as he laid into new Conservative plans to stop Europe overriding UK decisions on human rights.

Justice Secretary Chris Grayling said the Conservatives will repeal the Human Rights Act if elected next year and replace it with laws giving UK courts the final say on rulings.

Tories want to override decisions from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, which has been criticised for meddling in new areas of people’s lives and overriding UK decisions.

But Beaconsfield MP Mr Grieve, sacked as Attorney General in July, strongly opposes the plan and insisted the ECHR is vital in securing many ‘benchmark’ decisions on people’s rights.

He told the BBC: “I always recognised this is a difficult area but we are about to suffer what I would call a failure of ambition.

“We have always been at the heart of developing human rights on the world stage, very high status on the world stage at doing that and it had been of inestimable benefit to large numbers of people.

“The paper gives the impression of an entrenchment down to a very narrow focus indeed.

“The final irony is that when we’ve done all these things and ended up with our homegrown bill of rights, 99 per cent of our own decisions taken by our own Supreme Court applying it, unless of course he wants to get rid of human rights, will in fact be identical to those that we would get from Strasbourg.”

The plans have divided the Tory faithful, with former justice secretary Ken Clarke also speaking out against the plans earlier today.

Mr Grayling insists the ECHR is encroaching on parts of the law it was never intended to, and criticised rulings such as recommending prisoners are allowed to vote.

And as well as repealing the Human Rights Act – put in place by Labour in 1998 – he said the party would be prepared to leave the Convention on Human Rights entirely.

But Mr Grieve insists the move would be a backwards step, with the UK a major founding member of the human rights laws, drafted in 1953 and a condition of membership to join the EU.

Mr Grieve continues his vocal opposition to proposed changes to the law since losing his cabinet post.

In August he hit out at David Cameron’s plans to tackle Brits travelling to Syria and Iraq by removing their passports and preventing those abroad from coming home.