Majority of Labour members want party’s MPs to vote for assisted dying bill

The majority of Labour members believe MPs should vote for the assisted dying bill, according to a poll exclusive to LabourList.

In a Survation poll of Labour members, 54% said MPs should vote for the bill. This compares to 24% who said MPs should vote against the bill, 19% who said they don’t know, and just 3% who said MPs should abstain.

The under 25s are the only outliers, with 48% saying MPs should vote against the bill, compared to 39% saying MPs should vote for it.

Meanwhile the over 65s are most keen for MPs to vote for the bill, at 58%, compared to 17% who say MPs should vote against it.

Asked how Labour had handled the assisted dying bill, 35% said the party had handled it very well or quite well, while 20% said the party had handled it quite badly or very badly, a net positive difference of 15%.

Labour MPs appear to back bill too

It comes as MPs prepare to vote on the final stage of the bill in the Commons.

If passed it would allow terminally ill adults in England and Wales with less than six months to live to request to end their lives.

As it stands, 79 Labour MPs have publicly confirmed they will be supporting the bill at third reading, with 92 planning to vote against. Five Labour MPs plan to abstain, with 12 undecided.

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A number of MPs have also changed their stance since the first vote, with 13 Labour MPs switching their vote since the second reading of the bill in November.

If every other MP votes the same way they did last time, it would mean 221 Labour MPs backing the bill in the third reading expected next month – down 13 from 234 at the last vote.

The Labour Nos would be up nine from the last vote, to 156 MPs.

With the majority of Labour MPs still voting for the bill, it would appear the PLP roughly reflects the views of the membership.

The poll is the latest in a series of regular polls LabourList is publishing in partnership with leading pollsters Survation, a member of the British Polling Council and a Market Research Society Partner.

Survation surveyed 1,304 readers of LabourList, the leading dedicated newsletter and news and comment website for Labour supporters, who also said they were Labour Party members between May 30 and June 1.

Data was weighted to the profile of party members by age, sex, region and 2020 Labour leadership vote, targets for which were derived from the British Election Study and the results of the 2020 leadership election.

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