Blighty newsletter: Starmer’s silence puts the assisted-dying bill at risk

MPMPMPMPMPMPThis week will see the most consequential vote on a social-policy question in at least a decade. On Friday s will vote on the second reading of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. This legislation, brought by Kim Leadbeater, a Labour backbencher, would give a person in England and Wales with six months to live the right to request help in ending their life. Parliament has been discussing such bills on and off since 1936; this one has the best prospect of passing yet, although the result is genuinely unpredictable. That is partly because this is a free vote and many s are keeping their counsel. It is also because of the way the process has been handled.The assisted-dying debate is a case study in how prime ministers can try to bring about social change—or not. For the activist approach, look to David Cameron’s support for same-sex marriage in 2013. He admits in his memoirs that he was late in life to the cause of gay equality; but having decided on it, he threw the power of his office behind it. Although s were given a free vote, the same-sex marriage bill was government legislation, not a private member’s bill like Ms Leadbeater’s. Lord Cameron himself gave rousing speeches on the conservative case for same-sex unions. The result was a bitter split within his own party and a confrontation with Christian leaders. But the law passed, meaning that history may remember him for something other than Brexit. Political capital well spent.For another approach, take Harold Wilson, the Labour prime minister in 1964-70 and 1974-6. His tenures saw radical liberalisation of the law on censorship, divorce, abortion and homosexuality, as well as the abolition of the death penalty. Yet much of this was the work of backbench bills; although Wilson’s government gave them time in Parliament to pass, he kept his distance from what he called “Guardian-isms”. The result is that historians dispute how much, if any, credit Wilson gets for this revolution: Ben Pimlott’s sweeping 800-page biography grants it just two paragraphs.On assisted dying, Sir Keir Starmer is more a Wilson than a Cameron. There’s little doubt the prime minister supports the spirit of the legislation: as director of public prosecutions, he introduced a de facto moratorium on prosecutions of relatives who helped their loved ones to end their lives where there was no evidence of coercion. Yet he is investing little political capital in making it happen, on the grounds that it would be wrong to exert pressure on his s by revealing his own preferences.That aloofness may have worked for a prime minister in the 1960s, when outdated prohibitions were quietly repealed in votes in the small hours of the morning. Yet many of Sir Keir’s colleagues wonder whether it works in 2024. Assisted dying has become a national debate in which everyone has a stake, and the onus on the prime minister to provide leadership on the ethical questions of the day is so much greater than it was. His passivity is frustrating Labour s who support the bill, given that senior figures who oppose it—such as Wes Streeting, the health secretary—are more than happy to have their say.Should the bill fail, the prospect that the assisted-dying cause will succeed in this parliament looks slight. If a private member’s bill fails, the same issue typically then cannot be raised via that route again in the same parliamentary session, at least not without substantial amendments. And Sir Keir’s reluctance to shape the debate on assisted dying, even within his own party, makes it hard to imagine him at the vanguard of a government-backed process.In our weekly edition says Parliament should pass the bill: even if it is more restrictive than we might like, it would create greater freedom, choice and dignity for some patients. George Banjo, our British health correspondent, , where a similar regime to that proposed by Ms Leadbeater seems to be working well. She also writes on why —a big point of contention in the debate—can be radically improved for less money than you might think. Standing in for our regular Bagehot columnist, I explain how , a mid-century liberal philosopher, provides a guide to this week’s debate. And in our By Invitation slot, we have guest pieces from two of the leading protagonists in the debate: herself and , a Conservative who opposes the bill.