shell.SDP

John Smith's ft Peter Kay “Ave it!” 2002

Keir Starmer: “I will do everything to protect Muslims and route out Islamophobia with every last breath I have.”

Nothing says you're proud of a tolerant and diverse country like you building a 10ft fence to protect MPs from diversity.

My personal view on an important matter. On the 18th of March the House of Lords rejected the amendments tabled to remove or meaningfully limit Clause 208 of the Crime and Policing Bill, a clause which decriminalises, without restriction, a woman ending her own pregnancy at any stage up to and including full term. Abortion is a matter of considerable moral complexity on which reasonable people hold differing views. It has long been held to be a matter of individual conscience by both myself and the Social Democratic Party (SDP). However, this clause was not in any party's manifesto. It was not debated during a general election campaign. Rather, it was inserted into the sprawling Crime and Policing Bill and given just 46 minutes of debate in the House of Commons. Abortion pills may now be obtained over the internet, without prescription or medical oversight. A full-term viable pregnancy may be ended at home with no legal consequence. Further, it could be argued that this law leaves vulnerable women more exposed, not less. It reduces vestiges of the legal framework by which coercion towards abortion would have been identified and prosecuted. It also opens the door to sex-selective abortion - which some societies practice at scale throughout the world - with no mechanism remaining to challenge it. This reckless legislative change has been passed without public consent, without adequate scrutiny, and - critically - without regard for the viable human lives it leaves entirely unprotected. My personal position is clear: I regard this as an appalling and distressing decision by the Lords. To decriminalise abortion at any point in pregnancy crosses a line which, hitherto, I had considered to be well beyond the majority view of any reasonable British parliamentary body. Sadly, I was wrong. It’s an extreme decision which some argue puts into question our claim to be a civilised society. Were I in government I would push for the restoration of the legal protections for viable human life that this clause removes.