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| Britain |
| Why did the assisted dying bill fail in the Commons? |
| 2026-10-10 |
| [Guardian] After two years of impassioned arguments, tearful personal testimonies, noisy protests and ethical dilemmas, the assisted dying bill for England and Wales failed on a knife edge. Campaigners on the pro side largely blame the House of Lords for making it seem an impossible struggle to get the bill through parliament, after blocking it the first time by putting through more than 1,000 amendments so that it ran out of time. The opponents are more inclined to think that they ended up picking so many holes in the legislation that it was bound to fail, as they raised more and more objections on safety grounds. But the truth was that many MPs felt momentum was lost when it became clear it was not a priority of Andy Burnham’s government. Although as Greater Manchester mayor he had said he would probably vote in favour of the initial private member’s bill, in July Burnham said he now thought the bigger issue should be to improve end-of-life support. trailpic How did your MP vote on the reintroduced assisted dying bill? Read more It suddenly became very unlikely that the government would throw its weight behind giving the bill its full backing or expending energy on policy development to help it succeed. Burnham’s change of position was a blow to the pro campaigners after Keir Starmer had long given his tacit support to the first bill proposed by Kim Leadbeater, even though it was a conscience vote. In private, many MPs also admit that another factor in losing support for the bill was that backing it did not do Starmer’s administration many favours. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #2 |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2026-10-10 13:52 |
| #1 |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2026-10-10 11:36 |