Labour has become the pro-abortion, pro-assisted dying party
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The Labour movement is in mourning after the death of Tommy McAvoy, the former MP for Rutherglen and, since 2010, a member of the House of Lords, on March 8.
Tommy was the answer to an obscure pub quiz question: apart from Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, who was the only MP to hold exactly the same government office for the duration of Blair’s government?
As pairing whip, it was Tommy’s job to say yay or nay to colleagues’ requests to go home early or to take time off the whip for whatever reason. Despite having a fearsome reputation, there was a deeply kind aspect to his character which, for public relations reasons, he rarely allowed to be shown publicly.
He was also part of a generation of MPs who held fast to personal faith when it came to votes on matters of conscience. A devout Roman Catholic, Tommy would reliably vote against any extension to the right to abortion, daring any Left-wing critics to challenge him on the matter. No record exists of any such challenge having been made.
Whether such a tolerant approach continues to prevail in the modern Labour Party remains to be seen, for there has not been a vote on abortion in a long time. Particularly on the Left, views that were once considered reasonable and moderate might now be considered unforgivably misogynist. Polite disagreement seems to be going the way of the dodo.
But there will be a chance in the near future to gauge whether matters of conscience are still to be considered as such in parliament. Keir Starmer has undertaken, in the event of a Labour victory at the next general election, to allow MPs a free vote on assisted dying. This seems a sensible way forward; to make such a sensitive issue one of party politics would be unwise.
There are a couple of problems with Starmer’s approach, however. The first is that this issue has arisen from the horrendous experience and subsequent campaign by a high-profile and much-loved celebrity, namely Dame Esther Rantzen, who has terminal cancer. While it is perfectly acceptable for famous individuals to lend their names to campaigns to change the law, submission to a high-profile demand for change smacks of populism rather than earnest consideration.
The last time a national treasure intervened so successfully and so robustly in a political debate was in 2009, when Joanna Lumley’s view on the right to UK citizenship of former army Gurkhas prevailed against the then Labour government’s wishes. That was a poor decision and an unnecessary capitulation in the face of a popular celebrity’s demands. We must ensure that any change in policy this time around is based on cool and considered logic rather than fear of getting on the wrong side of celebrity.
The second problem surrounding any free vote on assisted dying is that in the age of social media, our elected representatives are far more concerned with likes and ReTweets than they should be.
Something as serious as the right of terminally ill citizens to choose a swift and dignified death should occupy more than the character limit of a social media platform or a mic-drop moment on a TikTok video.
Sitting in the chamber during a long debate, even if you have no intention of speaking, and carefully considering the points made by speakers on both sides of the argument, is surely more important than simply turning up to vote according to the position you’ve already settled on and publicly signalled days or months in advance.
More importantly, the sincerely held views of those of a religious bent cannot be airily dismissed or mocked, just as those who voted against abortion in all its forms in previous generations were rightly regarded with respect and tolerance by dissenting colleagues.
Voltaire may never actually have declared that while disapproving of what his listeners said, he would nonetheless defend to the death their right to say it. But in an age of culture wars, where political opponents are rarely wrong or misguided, or happen to have reached different conclusions on an issue, but are in fact evil or bigoted (and the choice of bigotries grows ever greater every day), the nation deserves a return to the more civilised and respectful rules of debate that prevailed in the past.
Given Tommy’s personal faith, I suspect I know how he would have voted had this issue presented itself while he was still alive. But he would never have condemned anyone who thought or voted differently. And no one would have taken him to task on his own actions or views. Not if they had any sense, anyway.
