UK vote exposes PM Cameron's failure to unite party on Europe

By Andrew Osborn

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron's failure to unite his ruling Conservative party on the issue of Europe was laid bare on Thursday, when many of his own lawmakers tried and failed to dilute the effects of Europe's main human rights treaty.

Eighty-six of his 303 lawmakers voted to amend an immigration bill championed by Cameron despite the government saying the proposed amendment was illegal.

The amendment would have curbed the ability of British judges to block the deportation of foreign criminals by citing their right to a family life under the European Convention on Human Rights, a situation that has become a focus of anger for British eurosceptics.

Facing the prospect of an embarrassing rebellion, Cameron ordered his ministers to abstain in the vote to avoid the impression of a formal split in his party ahead of important elections to the European Parliament in May.

He then incongruously had to rely on the opposition Labour party and the Liberal Democrat party - his junior coalition partner - to vote down the amendment.

Cameron's tactical retreat and the number of Conservative lawmakers who voted in favour of the amendment were seen as blows to his authority and highlighted the deep-seated division within his party on the issue of Europe.

The prime minister tried to quell the eurosceptic wing of his party last year by promising to try to renegotiate Britain's ties with the European Union if re-elected in 2015 before giving Britons an in-out EU membership referendum.

His strategy initially worked and appeared to have united the party on an issue that helped topple the country's last two Conservative prime ministers. But eurosceptics in the party have grown impatient with what they see as a lack of movement on the issue and have begun to demand tougher action.

Their anxiety has been fuelled by the approach of elections to the European Parliament in May which polls suggest could see the Conservatives pushed into third place behind the anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP).

That would be a blow to the Conservatives and stoke already deep-rooted fears inside his party that UKIP - which wants Britain to leave the EU and opposes what it calls open door immigration - could split the centre-right vote at a national election in 2015, depriving Cameron of victory.

Sources close to Cameron said the prime minister had been sympathetic to the defeated amendment but had deemed it unworkable. They said his tactical approach to the vote had avoided a formal split in the party.

But Yvette Cooper, Labour's spokeswoman on home affairs, accused Theresa May, Cameron's interior minister, of being "scared" of her own lawmakers.

"You sat on your hands because you were scared. What kind of home secretary (interior minister) is that? What kind of government is this?"

UKIP accused Cameron of losing control of his own lawmakers, saying he had lost "the plot".

(Editing by Hugh Lawson)