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Clegg In Tory 'Headbangers' And 'Tyrants' Jibe

Nick Clegg has branded his Tory colleagues "headbangers" and said they wanted to line up along with "Putin and other tyrants".

The Deputy Prime Minister said he had been "blindsided" by the Conservatives' proposal to push ahead with plans to limit the power of the European Court of Human Rights in the UK.

Mr Clegg said the reshuffle, which saw opponents of the move such as Ken Clarke and Attorney General Dominic Grieve removed from post, had shown the Tory "headbangers have now won".

David Cameron has been presented with proposals for a British bill of rights by a working group of Conservative lawyers, which would assert the sovereignty of Parliament, according to the BBC.

However, it does warn the move could see the UK expelled from the Council of Europe which upholds the European Convention on Human Rights.

The convention was drawn up after the Second World War to stop the atrocities of the holocaust from ever being repeated.

Mr Clegg said: "I have been completely blindsided today by hearing that the Conservatives, extraordinarily, want to line up with Vladimir Putin and other tyrants around the world by tearing up our long tradition of human rights."

"I think it's really sad to see a mainstream party like that turning its back on a great long-standing British tradition of standing up internationally for human rights.

"It's very revealing that that is apparently the most immediate knock-on effect of removing people like Dominic Grieve and Ken Clarke, is that you've now got a much more extreme view taking root in the heart of the Conservative Party."

It comes as the coalition appears to be imploding in the run-up to the 2015 election with a separate argument over a Lib Dem u-turn on the so-called bedroom tax .

Mr Cameron had pledged to reform the Human Rights Act in 2010 but failed to win the majority needed to do so at the General Election.

At the Tory conference last autumn, both Home Secretary Theresa May and Justice Secretary Chris Grayling said the Conservatives were willing to pull out of the ECHR if that is what it took to limit interference.

Mrs May announced then that details of how the Conservatives planned to scrap the Human Rights Act would be published in 2014. It will be a 2015 manifesto pledge.

It comes after a number of high-profile battles with the European Court of Human Rights to remove foreign criminals from the country, including the radical cleric Abu Qatada.