Tuesday briefing: Can a deeply divided UK agree on an assisted dying bill?

In depth: ‘I don’t believe anyone should suffer unnecessarily’

The assisted dying debate has drawn demonstrators from opposing views. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing/Getty Images

There was a point last summer when it felt highly likely that assisted dying – legal in many other countries, such as Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and most of Australia – would be made legal in England and Wales. So when the assisted dying bill was scuppered last Friday night, stalling in the House of Lords after more than 1,000 amendments, some campaigners struggled with it.

“It’s hard not to get emotional about it,” Nathan Stilwell tells me. “Terminally ill people were given hope last year when elected politicians voted for this, and we could never have imagined that a bill of this importance would end in this way – simply being talked out, without a vote and without anything meaningful we could do to stop it.”

The defeat in Westminster followed a similar setback in Scotland. In March, MSPs rejected a bill by 69 votes to 57, despite having previously backed it for further scrutiny. With defeats on both sides of the border, Stilwell says it feels like a “retrenchment”.

Even among the bill’s many critics the mood was far from celebratory after it stalled.

“I don’t think anyone is delighted,” Lucy Webster tells me. “It doesn’t feel like a good win … for most of us it is not about being against the principle. I’m actually in favour of assisted dying, because I don’t believe anyone should suffer unnecessarily.”

Instead, she argues, the concern was about how the legislation had been drawn up. “It was specifically about a bill which was poorly designed, poorly consulted on, and [which] didn’t take into account very legitimate concerns about groups of people who would have been made incredibly vulnerable.”

What was being proposed?

The bill would have allowed terminally ill adults in England and Wales – defined as those with a life expectancy of six months or less – to request medical assistance to end their own life. To qualify, a person would have had to be mentally competent, acting voluntarily and free from coercion, and to make a formal, witnessed declaration of their wishes.

Two independent doctors would have had to confirm the diagnosis, prognosis and the patient’s capacity, with further scrutiny from a multidisciplinary panel including medical, legal and safeguarding expertise before approval was granted. Medication would then be prescribed but taken by the individual themselves, rather than administered by a clinician.

Even if it had passed, the law would not have come into effect immediately. Implementation was expected to take several years, with unresolved questions about how the service would operate in practice – including whether it would sit within the NHS or alongside it – and what systems, training and safeguards would need to be put in place for it to work.

How did the bill fail in Westminster?

Some question if decisions around assisted dying can be separated from wider social attitudes. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing/Getty Images

Stilwell is unequivocal that a Lords “filibuster” was, in practice, what ended the bill’s passage in Westminster. “If you look at the nearly 1,300 amendments, with more still being introduced last week, many were clearly unworkable,” he says. He cites amendments requiring pregnancy tests for all applicants, including people over the age of 80, and increasing the number of doctors involved from two to seven.

“It was effectively wrecking the bill,” he tells me. What was disappointing, he says, was that “it has been deeply serious legislation, but the way it was handled veered into the absurd”.

But even if Lucy was unhappy with the way the bill ended up being stalled, her concern revolves around whether decisions about assisted dying can truly be separated from wider social attitudes. “These medical decisions are not made in a vacuum,” she says. “They are shaped by society’s biases around disability.”

For many people, she argues, the issue is trust in the system itself. “Disabled people know going to the doctor is not a neutral ground … It’s not about me, but I’ve had doctors tell me I must have a poor quality of life – I’m a journalist and an author. I have a great life.”

Could advocates have gone further to reassure critics?

Supporters argue the bill had already been designed to be highly restrictive.

“The eligibility criteria were already among the strictest in the world,” Stilwell says. The process itself was deliberately rigorous, involving multiple assessments, waiting periods and oversight before any approval.

“There was already so much in the bill that if you added more, a terminally ill person simply wouldn’t be able to access it. We’re at the limits of what someone in that situation could reasonably go through.”

But critics remain unconvinced. Concerns about coercion, the protection of disabled people and the wider impact on healthcare have continued to dominate opposition to the proposals.

The Nuffield Trust, which retains a neutral position on the ethics of whether or not assisted dying should be legalised, has carried out extensive research into assisted dying in practice (pdf). It found that, internationally, assisted dying systems are complex, resource-intensive and uneven in practice. There is a heavy reliance on clinicians, which can act as a restriction, and the insistence on multiple stages – requests, assessments, waiting periods, approvals – can make it slow and administratively heavy.

What happens next?

It seems very unlikely that the government will put a new bill forward itself. Although it kept officially neutral on the issue as it went through parliament, there are prominent cabinet members – including Wes Streeting and Shabana Mahmood – who have expressed opposition.

That means any future attempt to bring back the bill would most likely come again via a private member’s bill – an uncertain route that is dependent on the luck of the parliamentary ballot. But Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP for Spen Valley, promised that the fight was not over, arguing in this piece for the Guardian that the bill had faced “a relentless campaign of misinformation.” She also claimed to have had conversations with MPs who voted against it last time,who are now so angry with the bill having been delayed that they would support it being picked up again in the next session and sent back to the upper chamber.

Recently, the Isle of Man and Jersey have each voted to allow assisted dying. Once enacted, their residents will be among the 300 million or so people across multiple countries that have access around the world to legally assisted deaths.

In researching this topic for today’s newsletter, one paragraph has stayed with me more than all else. Frances Ryan wrote at the start of this latest round of parliamentary debate: “The truth is, there are no goodies or baddies here. There are just human beings – some of them in pain, scared or angry – trying to do right by themselves, their loved ones and their community. Life is not easy. It is messy.”

The messy conclusion to this latest attempt to legislate on the issue means it remains unresolved, but it will not be going away.

What else we’ve been reading

‘Every day that passes I feel more strongly that I should emigrate,’ says one young medical student, right, in Tehran. Photograph: Anonymous

• The uneasy ceasefire between the US and Iran ceasefire has been dominated by concerns about the economy. But this article with the perspectives of six ordinary Iranians is a timely human reminder of what is at stake. Patrick
• I pride myself on keeping up with music culture. Half-human, half-horse nag pop provocateur DJ star HorsegiirL may be the moment I finally concede I don’t understand what is happening any more. Martin
• I loved the story of how Wembley’s ground staff keep the grass looking so good. It’s precision lawn-mowing at its finest. Patrick
• This true crime retelling of the sensational case of the Denver Spider-Man, a murder that shocked Colorado in the 1940s, reads as if it could have been an X Files episode. Martin
• Kimberley Brown tells the moving tale of a jailed mother and her daughter in Ecuador. As one legal expert puts it: “The entire [prison] system is designed to produce the worst possible outcomes in terms of breaking the social fabric.” Patrick

Sport

Tyson Fury (left) and Anthony Joshua will meet in a long-anticipated bout in November. Composite: Getty Images

Boxing | Anthony Joshua is to face Tyson Fury this year after the promoter Eddie Hearn confirmed a deal to stage the biggest fight in British boxing history has been signed. Joshua will face the Albanian heavyweight Kristian Prenga in Riyadh on 25 July as a warm-up for his long-awaited showdown with Fury, which is expected to take place in November and be shown on Netflix.

Football | First-half goals from Casemiro and Benjamin Sesko set Manchester United on their way to a 2-1 win against Brentford at Old Trafford.

Snooker | Ronnie O’Sullivan’s bid for a record-breaking eighth Crucible title was shattered in Sheffield as John Higgins capped a remarkable comeback with a 13-12 win to move into the World Snooker Championship quarter-finals.

The front pages

Photograph: Guardian

“PM pleads for unity among Labour MPs over critical Mandelson vote” says the Guardian’s splash headline. The Times has “PM battles to block sleaze vote” while the Telegraph goes with “Starmer pleads with MPs to save him”. The Mail calls it “Starmer’s stitch-up to save his own skin”. The Financial Times runs with “Meta’s $2bn swoop on Manus blocked in warning from Beijing over AI deals”.

The i paper splashes on “King’s warning to America: Charles urges US president and Congress to stick with Europe”. About that, the Mirror says “Peace envoy” under the strapline “King’s American mission”. The Metro has “Iran embassy in chilling call for ‘martyrs’”. The Express chooses as its lead: “PM is ‘putting welfare ahead of UK national security’”.

Today in Focus

Christopher Harborne donated £1m to a private company Boris Johnson set up after resigning as prime minister. Composite: LNP/Getty Images/Guardian Design

The secretive billionaire bankrolling Nigel Farage

A crypto tycoon has given millions to Farage’s political parties. But who is Christopher Harborne and what does he want in return?

Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings

Illustration: Ben Jennings/The Guardian

The Upside

A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad

Chris Martin was among the celebrities who helped Polish influencer Łatwogang raise more than £50m for a children’s cancer charity. Photograph: Youtube

A social media influencer in Poland has raised more than £50m during an extraordinary nine-day nonstop fundraiser for a child cancer charity. Dozens of celebrities – from the footballer Robert Lewandowski to Coldplay’s Chris Martin – backed the initiative, which now ranks among the largest fundraising efforts in YouTube history.

To raise money, the 23-year-old influencer Łatwogang listened to a charity song about children fighting cancer around the clock for nine days, interspersed with appearances by celebrities. The song, a diss track, was pitched at cancer itself, with an 11-year-old rapping: “If you suffer from cancer just like me, this song is for you. I’m Maja and this is my third relapse, and I have reasons to diss you.”

The money raised will support the Cancer Fighters foundation that supports children with cancer and their parents.

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