David Cameron has abandoned a proposed law to give the UK Parliament supremacy over Brussels.
The so-called Sovereignty Bill has been buried by the Government just months after the Prime Minister first announced it at the start of the European Union (EU) referendum campaign.
He had promised that the new law would bring in constitutional safeguards to protect British sovereignty against the growing power EU institutions, especially the European Court of Justice.
However, the bill will be absent from the Queen’s speech at today’s State Opening of Parliament.
The Sun reports that government sources claim the Prime Minister has abandoned the idea all together, and that it was only ever a ruse to try to win over senior Brexit supporters, such as Justice Secretary Michael Gove and the now former London Mayor Boris Johnson.
One source said: “The Sovereignty Bill was only ever intended to get Boris on side, and that went will didn’t it?
“It was a sham from the start and luckily fooled nobody.”
Iain Duncan Smith, the former Work and Pensions Secretary who is a prominent Tory supporter of Brexit, said last night: “It appears the much vaunted Sovereignty bill, key to the argument that the PM had secured a reform of the EU, has been tossed aside.
“The fear in Government must be that as no one in Britain buys the idea that the EU has been reformed, the Sovereignty bill would draw the public’s attention back to that failure.
“After all if the EU Court of justice is supreme and can strike down our laws, the British people would have just laughed at the idea Britain can be sovereign unless we leave the EU.”
The revelation comes as the Prime Minister is accused of “watering down” today’s Queen’s speech to remove any controversial measures that may turn voters against the government ahead of next month’s referendum.
The only bill likely to cause contention is the proposal to scrap the Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights, thus breaking the link between British Courts and the European Court of Human Rights.
However, Mr Duncan Smith says the dilution of the bill is causing “increasing concern” among many members of Mr Cameron’s party.
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