{"id":194287,"date":"2025-06-18T11:41:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T11:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/194287\/"},"modified":"2025-06-18T11:41:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T11:41:09","slug":"assisted-dying-risks-being-labours-brexit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/194287\/","title":{"rendered":"Assisted dying risks being Labour\u2019s Brexit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tomorrow, the Commons will vote on the third reading of the assisted dying bill. Most MPs expect it to pass by a narrower margin than the majority of 55 MPs last time. There has been a shift in momentum throughout the bill\u2019s passage through parliament, with at least a dozen more names now voting<\/a> against Kim Leadbeater\u2019s legislation. This shift has coincided with the steady erosion of much of the goodwill which characterised second reading in November. The subsequent committee stage was characterised by fraught exchanges, with the changes Leadbeater made to the bill infuriating some colleagues.<\/p>\n

The private tensions within the Labour party were on public display last Friday. Leadbeater sat with her group of supporters on the fourth bench back; on the row in front was Jess Asato, Rupa Huq and a cluster of opponents. There was a tempestuous undercurrent to the debate. Paul Waugh delivered withering rejoinder to Esther Rantzen\u2019s ill-judged jibe about assisted dying opponents being motivated by \u2018undeclared personal\u00a0religious\u00a0beliefs.\u2019 \u2018Some of those who passionately support assisted dying,\u2019 said Waugh. \u2018Have a faith, a devout faith, that their world view is the right one.\u2019 In parliament, the subject is testing friendships and straining interactions in the tea room. As one Labour MP told my colleague Madeline Grant, assisted dying risks becoming \u2018Labour\u2019s Brexit\u2019.<\/p>\n

The passions aroused are certainly evocative of the debate on Britain\u2019s membership of the European Union. Much as how a generation of Tory politicians came to define their identity on how they stood on the European question, so too has personal testimony featured heavily in Labour MPs\u2019 motivation in how are casting their votes. \u2018Brexit was about one side who thought the other was unpatriotic,\u2019 reflects one Tory veteran. \u2018And another which thought the other side was stupid. This [assisted dying] is about much more fundamental questions of the cosmos.\u2019 Assisted dying will likely serve as a filter for other debates for the rest of this parliament. Expect it to crop up again and again in conversations around the NHS \u2013 the state institution which Labour MPs hold most dear.<\/p>\n

Before the election, senior Labour figures debated whether to start a \u2018national conversation\u2019 on assisted dying. Eventually, they decided against, reasoning, as one told<\/a> Katy Balls: \u2018We didn\u2019t want to become the death party.\u2019 Yet the assisted dying bill clearly enjoys the tacit approval of the Prime Minister. It is sponsored by a Labour MP, backed by a majority of Labour MPs and will be enacted in law by a Labour government. Much as the Tory party came to own Brexit, so too will Labour \u2013 like it or not \u2013 own assisted dying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tomorrow, the Commons will vote on the third reading of the assisted dying bill. Most MPs expect it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-194287","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114704186401448411","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}