Former Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott has suggested the Assisted Dying Bill is racist in a bizarre rant against ex-Prime Minister Lord David Cameron.
Abbott, who is opposing measures to provide end of life treatment for terminally ill Britons, warned there were no safeguards in place to protect poor people, disabled people, black people and Asian people.
She said: “David Cameron is wrong. Discrimination is a fact across society for poor people, disabled people, Black people and Asian people.
“This includes both the health and the judicial systems. The assisted suicide bill offers no safeguards against it.”
Diane Abbott
PA
Abbott was responding to Lord Cameron changing his mind on assisted dying.
The ex-Prime Minister, who served as Foreign Secretary in the dying days of Rishi Sunak’s premiership, claimed he previously opposed changing the law because he feared that “vulnerable people could be pressurised into hastening their own deaths”.
Writing in The Times, Cameron added: “When we know that there’s no cure, when we know death is imminent, when patients enter a final and acute period of agony, then surely, if they can prevent it and — crucially — want to prevent it, we should let them make that choice.”
However, four former Prime Ministers – Gordon Brown, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss – have all said that they are opposed to Kim Leadbeater’s Private Member’s Bill.
Foreign Secretary Lord David CameronPAAbbott, who became Britain’s first black female MP in 1987, joins around 215 MPs currently opposed to the legislation.
The House of Commons vote is expected to end fairly close, with 264 MPs supporting Leadbeater’s proposal, 26 planning to abstain and 150 still undecided.
MPs will vote on the Assisted Dying Bill later today almost 10 years after the House of Commons rejected similar legislation by 330 votes to just 118.
The bill would apply to those who are over 18 years old, have mental capacity, and have six months left to live, with the consent of two medical professionals.
Diane AbbottPAHowever, Abbott’s intervention comes just months after the Hackney North & Stoke Newington MP was returned to the House of Commons following a race row which appeared to later threaten her selection as Labour’s candidate.
Abbott was suspended from the Labour Party for just over a year after the 71-year-old appeared to understate the discrimination faced by Jewish people.
Despite reinstating the whip following an investigation, Starmer was soon accused of trying to force the left out of the Labour Party.
Speaking ahead of the 2024 General Election, Abbott accused Labour of carrying out a “cull of left wingers”.
Labour separately blocked Lloyd Russell-Moyle and Faiza Shaheen running on July 4.