A rushed British law is no way to make such an important, painful decision as how to die | Sonia Sodha

Iabour goes into this weekend’s conference with a gentle warning that would do well to heed. The Starmerite think tank Labour Together has just released its analysis of why Labour wonThe conclusion: Labour has been “hired cautiously, on a trial basis, and can be fired on the spot if it deviates even slightly from its focus on voter priorities” and that it “must not be distracted by pet projects”.

No 10 should take note. It was reported last week that Starmer’s team is working behind the scenes to urge MPs who topped the vote on the private member’s bill to press ahead legislation to legalize euthanasia a reform that was nowhere in the Labour manifesto, but which Starmer has made clear that he personally supports. This is despite the fact that it is a major reform, open to significant abuse, and that not nearly enough work has been done on what sufficient safeguards would look like, and how we would check whether or not they were working.

Private Members’ Bills allow backbench MPs to introduce legislation into the House of Commons. Your best chance of getting a bill passed into law is to use one of the esteemed top positions in the voting at the start of each parliamentary session. MPs can either put forward their own legislation – campaign groups will try to provide them with ready-made bills – or pass a ‘handout’ bill, where the government asks MPs to make usually technical and relatively uncontroversial changes that it has not found time to make. There are many procedural obstacles a bill must be adopted and the chances of it becoming law are much greater if the government tacitly supports it.

Keir Starmer has made no secret of his support for a change in the law on euthanasia. He voted in favour of a bill to legalise euthanasia in 2015 and has said on many occasions that he personal supporter of amendment to the law. But there are major concerns about a lack of safeguards in existing proposals championed by campaigners outside and inside parliament. MPs backing a change in the law to legalise doctors assisting patients with terminal conditions and less than six months to die – provided two doctors, and perhaps a judge, sign off on their request – portray it as “very modest” And “narrow“That’s not true at all.

There is no set definition of what constitutes a “terminal” illness, and medical experts say it’s impossible to accurately predict life expectancy beyond a few days. So the legislation could ultimately cover people living with a wide range of conditions, with broad discretion for doctors in what they will and won’t approve.

While I personally sympathise with the principle that people in pain should have the autonomy to choose when to end their lives, approval by doctors or a judge is not an adequate safeguard: how will they determine whether someone is being coerced or pressured into making a decision, and what would be the burden of proof? We know that some family court judges do not understand the coercive control between partners, let alone whether family members exert pressure because it suits them that their sick parent chooses euthanasia in terms of caring responsibilities or financial considerations, in a world where social care is so underfunded.

And what about the pressure people themselves will feel—that ending their own lives is the right thing to do to avoid being a burden—once society approves of the option? How would we even know if this process is being abused, given that potential victims of wrongful state-sanctioned deaths would no longer be with us, and what about the likely disproportionate impact on women?

None of these important issues have been developed or adequately addressed in parliamentary debates to date. Indeed, some proponents have been wildly dismissive; one naive MP ridiculed concerns about protection as “the idea that the nation is crawling with granny killers”.

Parliament cannot simply pass campaigners’ bills. These are important issues that should be examined by a neutral body of experts, such as a royal commission or the Law Commission. But there is a risk that government pressure behind the scenes will ensure that this is passed by a new parliament with insufficient oversight. Although Starmer says it is a free voiceIt doesn’t bode well that No 10 is reportedly pressuring Labour MPs at the top of the list to pass a bill. You can imagine the conversations behind the scenes: that this is what the Prime Minister wants; what a great way to make their mark and get such important social legislation through the Commons. The bill may not have been formally passed, but there are plenty of impressionable, ambitious new MPs who are aware of Starmer’s personal views.

There are those who would argue that this would be no different from when homosexuality and abortion were decriminalised and the death penalty abolished, through private members’ bills in the 1960s. But the moral calculation in all these cases was simpler, and there had been a huge amount of pre-legislative work done by various royal commissions and interdepartmental committees on what form legislation should take. There had been no such work done on euthanasia.

So why the rush? It probably comes back to Starmer’s personal convictions stemming from when he changed CPS policy as Director of Public Prosecutions to ensure that prosecutions for assisted suicide only take place if they are in the public interest; a good reform that resulted in just 24 prosecutions between 2009 and 2024also for other crimes such as murder.

But Starmer’s enthusiasm for rapid change in the law without independent consideration of safeguarding issues suggests that he has not properly understood the risks and benefits of reform in this area. It is highly telling that two of the most thoughtful members of his cabinet, Shabana Mahmood And Wes Straatinghave raised serious concerns. The risk is that Starmer’s personal support could mean that a bill that looks simple on paper – but is fraught with the potential for abuse – will pass the Commons, which may or may not face resistance in the Lords. Starmer has no mandate to make this a priority, however implicit. He has been elected by voters to deliver on his manifesto, not by his personal conscience. If he really wants to pave the way for euthanasia, his government should set up a balanced expert royal commission, rather than tacitly supporting legislation that has not been properly thought through.