Leadbeater would go on to run a charity in her sister’s name, but when the seat again became vacant in 2021, she was put forward for the acrimonious by-election to follow. She won by just 323 votes, in a time when Labour was at a low ebb in the national polls.
In the proceeding years, through Labour’s stint in the depths of oppositions then its first months in government, Leadbeater’s identity, as she puts it, was “very much around being Jo’s sister.” So she bided her time as the phones rang across her offices in Westminster and back in her constituency — with various lobbying groups trying to attach themselves to her golden ticket from the private member’s ballot.
Leadbeater insists that No.10 Downing Street never got in touch to ask her to take up the issue, but neither did they need to. The prime minister’s long-held support for reform would be crucial in the government not crushing the bill.
It was 2015 and the last time the Commons considered changing the law on assisted dying was when Starmer, the fledgling MP for Holborn and St Pancras, made his first big intervention in the political arena.
Just months into the job, Starmer, the former chief prosecutor for England and Wales-turned-MP, advocated — in detail — why the nation needed to break from the status quo in which people who help someone end their life could be jailed for up to 14 years.
In a speech described politely as “lawyerly,” he set out how he changed legal guidance to make it less likely that people motivated by compassion would face prosecution if they helped dying relatives end their lives abroad, a not uncommon act for those who have sufficient resources.