David Cameron defied his party’s Eurosceptics yesterday by insisting that he would avoid confrontation with Brussels and by giving himself as long as five years to win back powers from the EU.

The Conservative leader confirmed that he was dropping his pledge to give voters a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon and dismissed calls for another vote on Britain’s relationship with the EU as “phoney”. Spelling out his new Europe policy after the treaty’s ratification, he made clear that renegotiating the return of powers from Brussels was not a priority.

In his only concession to Eurosceptic MPs he said that he would seek to pass a UK sovereignty Bill “to make it clear that ultimate authority stays in this country, in our Parliament”.

However, a leading member of France’s centre-right government last night attacked the Tories’ stance as “pathetic”. Pierre Lellouche, the Minister for Europe, said that Mr Cameron’s plans would marginalise Britain in continental affairs.

Speaking to The Guardian, he said: “It’s very sad to see Britain, so important in Europe, cutting itself out from the rest. They have essentially castrated your UK influence in the European Parliament.” He insisted that there was no chance of European leaders helping the Tories to renegotiate powers. “Nobody is going to play with the institutions again. It’s going to be take it or leave it and they should be honest and say that.”

Mr Cameron had dashed hopes that the Bill, which would put into statute law the sovereignty of Parliament, could be used to strike down existing European laws.

Instead, he gave himself five years — the whole of the next Parliament — to claw back powers, and brushed aside calls to bolster a Tory government’s negotiating position with a referendum. His position was strengthened when David Davis, the former Shadow Home Secretary and the most senior figure to call for such a vote, backed away from any further dissent after a meeting with the Tory leader.

Mr Cameron said: “We’re not going to rush into some massive European bust-up.” He added that reducing Britain’s deficit would be his priority.

“Would we really want to turn round straight after an election, with the public finances in the state they are in and the economy as fragile as it is, and ask the same question all over again? A made-up referendum might make people feel better for five minutes but my job is to put together a plan that lasts five years and I don’t think a phoney referendum should play any part in that.”

Although Mr Cameron said that voters would be given “specific guarantees” on powers to be returned from Brussels he admitted that much of the detail would be decided only after the election.

Fears that the downgrading of his European policy would provoke a backbench revolt proved largely groundless as Tory MPs cheered their leader at a private meeting before his public announcement. Banking on the discipline of a party scenting power, he said: “We have to deal with the world as it is, not as we would wish it.”

The pragmatic mood was captured by Sir Malcolm Rikfind, Tory MP for Kensington and Chelsea. “In politics you should not commit suicide or you might live to regret it,” he said, quoting Sir Winston Churchill.

In Strasbourg, however, Daniel Hannan resigned his post as the Tories’ legal affairs spokesman in the European Parliament. In a blog, he wrote: “We need a broad movement within the Conservative Party that will push for referendums, citizens’ initiatives and the rest of the paraphernalia of direct democracy.

“I have returned to the back benches in order to concentrate on building such a movement.”

Mr Cameron acknowledged that he had disappointed activists and Tory voters. But he blamed Gordon Brown for the absence of a referendum on the Lisbon treaty.

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