Kim Leadbeater’s Assisted Dying Bill is currently going through the usual revision process. The bill has already come in for a significant change. Namely, replacing signoff by a court with an expert panel including a lawyer, psychiatrist and social worker. The Guardian report that this change ’caused significant alarm among MPs who had voted for the bill on the basis that a high court judge would oversee each case’. Danny Kruger, leading the opposition to the bill, has already suggested the majority the bill initially garnered will no longer hold given such significant changes.

To give some sense of the concern amongst MPs, The Guardian reports the following MP’s comments:

Danny Kruger:

“Why, if this is the plan, why isn’t this the plan that was put to MPs when the whole House of Commons voted it through?” At that point, it was made very strongly that the principal safeguard for the bill, where people could have confidence that it was going to be safe for vulnerable people, was that there would be a high court judge approving the application. That’s now been removed. This new system … doesn’t involve a judge, it involves a panel of people, all of whom presumably are committed to the principle of assisted dying, not an impartial figure like the judge.

Diane Abbott:

“Safeguards on the Assisted Dying Bill are collapsing. Rushed, badly thought out legislation. Needs to be voted down.”

Florence Eshalomi:

“The key safeguard that was used to persuade MPs who raised valid questions about the bill has now been dropped. To say this is worrying is an understatement. Can they explain why lawyers, psychiatrists & social workers won’t be overwhelmed? Just a farce.”

Neil O’Brien:

“This safeguard was promised again and again. Gone before the Bill is even law. Very concerning.”

Despite these concerns, Kim Leadbeater continues to insist that the bill will still have ‘the strongest safeguards in the world’. The only problem here is that they insisted it would have the strongest safeguards in the world at the point they were proposing it and, now they have changed those safeguards, continue to insist that it will have the strongest safeguards in the world.

This means one of only three possible things. It potentially means the bill did have the strongest safeguards in the world – the specific safeguards in place when it was proposed being just that – but it now no longer does despite what we’re being told. That is to say, the claim was true but to maintain it now is untrue. Alternatively, it could be the case that the bill did not originally have the strongest safeguards in the world and it still doesn’t now. That is, the claim was hokum when it was first made and remains hokum now. The proposed changes are not stronger nor an upgrade, but the safeguards weren’t so strong to begin with. The third possibility – and this is the only one in which we can maintain nobody is peddling lies or half-truths – is that the original bill did indeed have the best safeguards in the world and the watered down version still amounts to the best safeguards in the world. But if that is true, all we learn here is that worldwide ‘safeguards’ are not worth the vellum onto which they are printed.

Here, then, are the only three possibilities we have if these safeguards on the Assisted Dying Bill really are still ‘the strongest safeguards in the world’. We were either lied to by those seeking to push it over the line – they knew the safeguards were not the strongest in the world to start with and they certainly know these new ones are less solid – or they really are the strongest in the world, which is itself an argument against these safeguards being very robust at all. If these are the strongest safeguards in the world – even in their new and watered down form – God help you if you’re Belgian, Canadian, Dutch or Swiss et al. A quick look at the way those safeguards have been applied in every country that has adopted similar legislation will tell you they are anything but safe! Arguing, on this basis, that we have ‘the strongest safeguards in the world’ is like being the world’s best jai alai player or sumo wrestler. The competition elsewhere is so low that the claim becomes meaningless.

Just a reminder as to what was claimed when the bill was first going through, here is Victoria Derbyshire interviewing one of the co-signatories to the bill. She is asked the same question multiple times and insists on the robustness of the safeguards that she either doesn’t really understand or knows are not what they are claiming them to be. She notes the oft-cited ‘strongest safeguards in the world’ which are deliberately and clearly answered as ‘being in the bill’ when it is apparent they are not:

These same people are now the ones insisting that the watered down legislation still continues to have ‘the strongest safeguards in the world’ despite this specific safeguard that has been removed being the one that convinced many to vote in favour. She repeats in the interview that these strong safeguards will necessarily be examined by the High Court judge. Indeed, she insists it will be a two-fold process of ‘expert panel’ followed up by High Court judge sign-off. This is the strong safeguard they were offering. It is now the one they have removed.

Perhaps most worryingly of all, the get-out throughout the interview – when it was clear there were not good answers to some of the questions – is that this bill will be scrutinised and amended down the track. This is the process we are now in. But what do we find? One of the few definitive and clear answers we were given for this being a good bill with ‘the strongest safeguards in the world’ has now been removed under scrutiny. The only clear and definitive answer as to what the safeguards on this bill would be has been taken out of the legislation altogether. The fine-tooth comb with which they would go through the legislation in order to tighten up all the gaps in the stated safeguards (and there were quite a few in that interview) seems to have started removing them rather than plugging the glaring holes for which no answers came.

But don’t worry folks, these are the strongest safeguards in the world! This is the best of all possible worlds! Once more with feeling! If we say it enough, we might just start to believe it. Because right now, with the literal Kool-Aid we’re being offered that is definitely, absolutely, totally safe (world’s best, you say?), it’s starting to look like the emperor we suspected might have no clothes on may just be the disrobed leader of a death-cult.