Starmer Doubles Down on Commitment to Allowing Vote on Assisted Suicide

British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer speaks at a press conference after his first cabinet meeting at 10 Downing Street, London, on July 6, 2024. Claudia Greco/PA Wire

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has doubled down on his commitment to allow a free vote in the House of Commons on legalising assisted suicide.

Speaking to reporters while on a trip to Washington for the NATO summit, Sir Keir said he would provide parliamentary time if a backbench MP put forward a private members’ bill proposing a change in the law.

The prime minister said, “I’m not going back on the commitment I made, it’s just we have got to set out priorities for the first year or so, but I will double down on the commitment that we are going to do that, we will allow time for a private member’s bill, and there will be a free vote.”

“As to the timing of it, I haven’t made a commitment on that and I don’t want to,” he added.

Although not included as a campaign pledge in the Labour Party’s manifesto, Sir Keir promised Dame Esther Rantzen that he would allow the vote if he became prime minister, telling the television presenter in March, “I’m personally in favour of changing the law.”

Pandora’s Box

The last time there was a vote on assisted suicide in parliament was nine years ago and the recent debate on the issue was prompted when Dame Esther revealed she has stage four cancer and has joined Dignitas, the Swiss organisation that provides medically-assisted suicide.

A petition triggered a non-binding debate on assisted suicide in Westminster Hall in April, which saw MPs from across the political spectrum speak in favour of legalising assisted suicide on grounds that it gives people with terminal conditions a dignified death and spares families from watching loved ones suffer.

However, critics warned that the legal constraints of who would be eligible for assisted suicide would not remain limited to those with terminal conditions, with MPs listing cases overseas where young people with PTSD and depression have accessed state-sponsored euthanasia.

While the debate was going on in parliament, both pro- and anti-euthanasia protests were going on outside.

One demonstrator, Dr. Mark Pickering, CEO at the Christian Medical Fellowship and spokesman for Care Not Killing, described the measures as “Pandora’s Box,” telling NTD UK News that once you open it, “you can’t close it,” citing The Netherlands, Belgium, and Canada where assisted suicide has extended beyond its initial intentions.

Campaigners protest outside Parliament in Westminster, London, ahead of a debate in the House of Commons on assisted suicide on April 29, 2024. Jordan Pettitt/PA Wire

Historian and CEO of Humanists Against Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia Kevin Yuill similarly warned that in every country where assisted suicide had been introduced, it has been expanded beyond its original intentions: for the terminally ill with six months to live.

Mr. Yuill told NTD’s “British Thought Leaders” that other countries like Belgium, The Netherlands, and Canada all started their euthanasia campaigns with those restrictions in place, only for the scope to widen.

“In Canada, it was legalised in 2016 for people whose death was, quote, ’reasonably foreseeable.' By 2020, they removed that from the legislation—that phrase, ’reasonably foreseeable’—to allow it for people who had ‘conditions’ as well as terminal illnesses.

“And now they are determined to put through euthanasia on the basis of mental health suffering, which is what is legal in the Netherlands,” Mr. Yuill explained.

“We will go down that track if we legalise assisted suicide in this country. There is no question,” he warned.

Jersey and the Isle of Man

The prime minister’s comments come the same week the Isle of Man—a Crown Dependency—took another step towards an assisted suicide law.

After seven days of debate across three months, the clauses stage of the island’s Assisted Dying Bill finished on Tuesday, with a third reading of the bill expected to begin on July 23.

Legislation on assisted suicide is also currently being considered by lawmakers in Scotland and Jersey.

In Scotland, Member of Scottish Parliament (MSP) Liam McArthur proposed an assisted suicide bill which if voted on later this year would be the third time MSPs would have been asked to consider changing the law after similar attempts were defeated.

In May, Members of the States Assembly in Jersey—also a Crown Dependency—backed drafting a law to establish assisted suicide on the island for terminally ill adults.

PA Media contributed to this report.