They will say this was ‘parliament at its best'. And they will be lying

The portents this morning were grim. The Grim Leadreaper was doing her HR manager of Hades act, buzzing around with faux sincerity like a wasp that had discovered LGBT History Month. Jess Philips took a great huff on her vape in the lobby before walking into the chamber. Perhaps it was sulphur flavour.
Inside the House of Commons the obviously sham last-minute 'switcher' Jack Abbott from the bill committee, as spineless a backbench toady as you ever did see, was there being all chummy with the unparalleled toad Jake Richards. Were they bonding perhaps over their new-found enthusiasm for death? It was Brokeback Mountain meets The Zone of Interest.
Voting began on amendments. A glut of ambitious backbench MPs rejected a safeguard brought forward by a coalition of MPs as diverse as Dame Karen Bradley for the Tories, Jim Allister for the TUV and brave and doughty Labour MPs Rachel Maskell and Jonathan Davies. It was designed to stop people from killing themselves because they felt like a burden.
Then Leadbeater herself spoke. 'It's not often that we get to debate morality issues in parliament', she said; just three days after parliament voted to decriminalise abortion up to birth via a sneakily tacked-on amendment and a few minutes of debate. The Leisure Centre operative turned supreme arbiter of life and death likes to talk about how she and her bill represent 'parliament at its best'. The irony being that anyone who truly believes this would fail any reasonable capacity test. The concerns of the key royal colleges of experts, who'd made repeated interventions in opposition to the bill, were shrugged off as 'different views'.
Wera Hobhouse, the Lib Dem MP for Bath complained that some members of the public had suggested that the current crop of MPs were too stupid to discuss an issue of this magnitude. For all their faults sometimes the General Public really do hit the nail on the head. Not only were many demonstrably too stupid to engage properly, some of them couldn't even be bothered to stay awake. Wearing a pair of dark glasses, Lib Dem MP Tessa Munt openly dozed through several speeches.
Certain moments added to the general atmosphere of despair. Jake Richards rolled his eyes and performatively scoffed as Naz Shah explained the bill's failure to close the anorexia loophole. Labour MP Lewis Atkinson commended the work of the hospice movement in alleviating suffering at the end of life. His praise was treacly, sweet and insincere. Almost diabetes-inducing in its efforts – another disease which will no doubt qualify for state sanctioned death in due time. While scrutinising the bill on the committee, the same Lewis Atkinson also rejected conscience amendments that would have prevented hospices and care homes from being forced to provide assisted dying
The walking embodiment of the banality of evil, Lib Dem MP Luke Taylor said that voting in favour was a good way to 'bookend the week'. That's the level of import MPs gave to this issue of life and death: bump off the weak to bookend your week. Many impassioned MPs never got to speak at all; Rosie Duffield left the chamber in disgust after trying to catch the Deputy Speaker's eye for several hours, with no success.
There was some debate about whether the Prime Minister – a long term death enthusiast – would turn up to vote. In the end, he did. It was nice of Esther Rantzen to send her own personal proxy.
Bump off the weak to bookend your week
It's worth naming those Labour MPs who have gone above and beyond in their attempts to make their colleagues see sense. Those, like Rachael Maskell, who worked behind the scenes to try and put down amendments that would safeguard the vulnerable. Jess Asato, who made probably the best and most forensic speech of the debate. Diane Abbott who, despite obvious illness, rose to speak movingly about the risks of compulsion. And Adam Jogee, who left a dying relative's bedside to come and vote because the bill's 'compassionate' proposer refused to find him a supporter to pair with and so spend the last moments he had with a loved one. Do remember them: they have been principled exceptions to the otherwise disgraceful rule.
Given we are now a culture which embraces and promotes death, perhaps a post-script on political deaths. When the inevitable national inquiry delves into the abuse and shortcomings of this law – which it will – the Labour backbenchers and Tory grandees who made this possible, these back-slapping middle-management Molochs will have their names etched in history as the people who brought this about. They will achieve a sort of immortality; just not as the progressive liberators they vainly imagine themselves to be.
Secondly, while much has been written about the impending death of the Tory party, what seems to have gone unnoticed is the death of Labour as well. What once made claims to be the party of working people, a force in politics on the side of the needy and the vulnerable, has in just under a year become a death cult for comfortable progressives. The tragedy is that they will drag down the very people they purport to protect with them.

Hashtags

Politics

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Opponents of assisted dying vow to fight on as MPs back Bill

North Wales Chronicle

3 hours ago

North Wales Chronicle

Opponents of assisted dying vow to fight on as MPs back Bill

Ms Leadbeater's Bill passed what could be its final Commons hurdle by 23 votes, down from the majority of 55 it secured when MPs first voted on it in November. The Spen Valley MP declared 'thank goodness' after the result while Rebecca Wilcox, daughter of campaigner Dame Esther Rantzen, said it was 'wonderful' the result had come ahead of her mother's birthday. But opponents vowed to fight on against what they called a 'deeply flawed Bill'. A group of 27 Labour MPs who voted against the legislation said: 'We were elected to represent both of those groups and are still deeply concerned about the risks in this Bill of coercion of the old and discrimination against the disabled, people with anorexia and black, Asian and minority ethnic people, who we know do not receive equitable health care. 'As the Bill moves to the House of Lords it must receive the scrutiny that it needs. Not about the principles of assisted dying but its application in this deeply flawed Bill.' But Ms Leadbeater told the PA news agency she hoped there would be no 'funny games' in the Lords, as her Bill faces further tough hurdles in the upper chamber. She added: 'I would be upset to think that anybody was playing games with such an important and such an emotional issue.' Meanwhile, one of the leading opponents of the Bill, Conservative Danny Kruger, described its supporters as 'enemies', saying he felt 'like Evelyn Waugh at the time of the Nazi-Soviet Pact in 1939'. In a series of tweets on Friday night, the East Wiltshire MP accused assisted dying campaigners of being 'militant anti-Christians' who had failed to 'engage with the detail of the Bill'. He added: 'It's the revenge of the middle-aged against their dependents.' Ms Leadbeater's Terminally Ill Adults (End Of Life) Bill will now proceed to the House of Lords, where it will undergo further scrutiny before becoming law, should peers decide to back the legislation. But some peers have already spoken out against the legislation, with the Bishop of London, Dame Sarah Mullally, saying they 'must oppose' the Bill as 'unworkable and unsafe'.