Theresa May has delivered a thinly veiled rebuke to Robert Jenrick after he launched an attack on British judges earlier this month.
In a wide-ranging critique on the direction of her party, the former Conservative prime minister warned against using “populism” for a “short-term political end”.
She challenged the Tories’ approach to net zero, the judiciary and human rights, urging the party to show leadership instead.
And she appeared to take aim at Conservative shadow justice secretary Mr Jenrick who criticised what he called “activist judges” in immigration courts in a speech to the Tory conference earlier this month.
Although Baroness May did not name Mr Jenrick, she told a Lords debate that judges had “too often come under attack from those peddling populist narratives.”
Politicians should not “question the integrity of our justices” or accuse them of “political bias”, she said.
She added: “By undermining the judiciary we further erode public trust in the institutions of our democracy and therefore in democracy itself.
“So I say to those seeking to villainise a judiciary that cannot easily answer back, who wilfully discredit our legal system for their own expediency – it’s time to show responsible leadership.”
It comes less than a month after the shadow justice secretary told the Conservative Party conference that “activist” judges with links to pro-migrant charities had undermined public trust in the courts.
Wielding a judge's wig as a prop, he said a future Tory government would take action against judges “who blur the line between adjudication and activism”.
While Baroness May said she knew it was “frustrating” to “come up against the courts” as a minister, and had seen examples of “judicial over-reach”, she warned her party to “tread carefully”.
She said: “This is not just about short-term decisions to make it easier to deal with public concerns about immigration.
“Our support for human rights has its origin in Magna Carta. How we deal with issues of human rights is fundamental to our ability to deal with autocracies and dictatorships.
“Every step we take to reduce our support for human rights merely emboldens our rivals and weakens our position in the world.”
Baroness May, whose government committed the UK to reaching net zero by 2050, also said she had been “disappointed” by the Conservatives’ pledge to repeal the Climate Change Act.
She said it was an “extreme and unnecessary measure” and warned it would “fatally undermine” Britain’s global leadership on climate issues, as well as investment and jobs generated by the transition to net zero.
The former PM went on: “This announcement only reinforces climate policy as a dividing line in our politics, rather than being the unifying issue it once was.
“And, for the Conservative Party, it risks chasing votes from Reform at the expense of the wider electorate.”
Last month, Baroness May warned that scrapping the Climate Change Act would be a “catastrophic mistake”.
She dubbed the plans a “retrograde” step that ended 17 years of consensus on the issue of climate change between mainstream political parties and the scientific community.
Reform UK has also committed to scrap net zero policies, while Baroness May argued polling showed the public was still broadly supportive of eliminating carbon emissions.
This year’s Tory conference also saw Mrs Badenoch commit to leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, in part to make it easier to deport people from the UK.
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