Article

Comment

Morality

Politics

11 March 2024

6 min read

The moral sugar high of the protest vote

We shouldn’t give politicians bloody noses over insurmountable single issues.

Yaroslav Walker

Yaroslav is Vicar of Christ Church, Hampstead.

A winning candidate at an election address the audience from a lectern while the loosing candidates look on

The victorious candidate at the Rochdale by-election.

A cat was elected as a Member of Parliament. A cat. George Galloway - former Labour party MP and Rula Lenska’s former cat - has been elected as Member of Parliament for Rochdale. The unique circumstances of the by-election make this a less surprising result than one might think. The Labour Party disowned their candidate, the Tory Party hardly contested the seat, and the sheer number of inappropriate independents meant that a split-vote victory for Galloway was entirely foreseeable. One must also note Galloway’s many skills: as a campaigner, an orator, and a dirty-tactic by-election gadfly.

So…Rula Lenska’s cat did the unimaginable and won a seat in Parliament. How did the cat do this? He convinced people that they could vote for him to protest the current Parliamentary position on the Israel-Gaza War. In his victory speech, Galloway gave an ominous warning: “Keir Starmer…this is for Gaza.” He went on to intimate that his victory was due to the high proportion of Muslim voters in Rochdale; their disgust at the Labour Party’s response to the Israeli invasion of Gaza morphing into a wish to give Keir Starmer (‘one cheek of the same backside’ - Rishi Sunak being the other cheek) a bloody-nose. He warned that Starmer “…will pay a high price for…enabling, encouraging, and covering for the catastrophe presently going on in occupied Palestine, in the Gaza strip.”

My fellow voters are intelligent enough to recognise that the single addition of George Galloway to the green benches will do almost nothing to affect change. They have voted so, the general consensus goes, simply to register their fury at the plight of ‘fellow Muslims’. I simply want to respond with a question. Is this moral?

People vote for all sorts of reasons. If we believe political scientists and pollsters, voters might care about many things, but will end up voting on the basis of one thing. Normally the economy. One’s own economic interest is a perfectly rational reason to vote for one party’s promises than another. There is a potential immediate impact on our lives and those of our family and friends. But Gaza?

Sociologists have spilt a tremendous amount of ink describing how human communities tend towards ‘tribal’ affection. We tend to feel more connected to those who are like us - in terms of geographic location, in terms of obvious racial characteristics, in terms of language and culture, of course religion. The notion that the Gazan War is a war on Muslims would be a natural driver for the Muslim community of Rochdale to vote ‘for’ their fellow Muslims.

On the other hand, in the world of modern ethics there has been a move to recognise that such tribal allegiance is ultimately meaningless - a call to see all human beings as equally worthy of our care and attention, especially irrespective of geography. Peter Singer famously presented the thought experiment of a drowning child - if we are willing to get our shoes wet and muddy to save a drowning child we walk by a shallow pond, why aren’t we willing to give up some of our wealth to alleviate the war-stricken poverty of a Gazan child many miles away?

The people of Rochdale must vote as their conscience requires. I simply worry that their conscience has taken on an impossible burden of care that they will struggle to sustain.

The words of Jesus seem to support such an ethic, which is always global in its vision. We are not only to love our neighbour as ourselves, we are to go out into all the world, evangelising the nations. From its beginning the Christian faith has preached that loving our neighbour means loving everyone. Everyone is a beloved child of God. Everyone is our neighbour. Surely a vote for Galloway, a vote of rage against the occupation of Gaza, is fundamentally moral - either on grounds of tribe, or rejection of tribe. Surely its Christian!

I’m not so sure.

I’m not so sure we fallen humans actually have the capacity to ‘care’ about the horrors that go on many, many miles away. Jesus tells us to love our neighbour as ourselves, but we barely have the emotional energy to love ourselves. We live in a society of such activity and distraction - with a seemingly concomitant rise in the incidence of hopelessness and depression - that I don’t think we can really give our moral and emotional energy to an event as distant and overwhelming as the plight of Gazan civilians. We can barely give it to our families. We can barely give it to ourselves. C S Lewis once wrote that the best way of eradicating suffering was people working away quietly at limited objectives: “I think the art of life consists in tackling each immediate evil as well as we can.”

Jesus was the ultimate localist - God became incarnate as a unique individual, of a particular tribe, of a particular nation, in a particular time and place. Jesus taught an ethic of universal love and dignity and respect, but lived out in specific acts of service. He didn’t wash the feet of all Jerusalem - just his disciples. He didn’t heal all disease everywhere and forever - but he did restore sight to the few blind people he met. St Paul wrote individual letters to individual communities. Yes, he asked them to pray for him and each other, but otherwise told them to focus on their immediate needs and charity and holiness. The popularity of Jordan Peterson is largely based on the achievability of his slightly nebulous self-help worldview: make YOUR bed, keep YOUR back straight, look after YOUR family. Improve yourself first if you want to even begin improving the world. You’ll probably never manage to improve more than your village…maybe only your own household. That might be enough.

I don’t judge those who voted for Galloway as a Gaza-conflict protest. A new campaign, ‘The Muslim Vote’, has emerged to persuade Muslim voters to lend their support to candidates who commit to ‘Peace in Palestine’ – ceasefire, sanction Israel, and a state for the Palestinians. It is becoming clear that what appears to have happened in Rochdale may well happen in constituencies up and down the country. The idea of the ‘Muslim vote’, which Galloway was able to turn into electoral victory, is being given form and force. It is emotive and persuasive, and may well convince people who have no link to Gaza other than their Muslim faith. It is entirely possible that some of the voters have family and friends trapped in the siege. I empathise with their vote and weep for their sorrow.

I don’t judge those who voted for Galloway as a Gaza-conflict protest. I do, however, worry that many have taken upon themselves a fundamentally unwieldy ethic. Galloway is not a one-man parliamentary wrecking ball - whatever he says. The position of the Government will not be changed by his election. The resolve of the Israeli military is unlikely to be dinted by the UK Government, no matter what resolutions the House of Commons passes. The people of Rochdale must vote as their conscience requires. I simply worry that their conscience has taken on an impossible burden of care that they will struggle to sustain. Perhaps they would be more fulfilled and more effective if they cast their vote on the basis of what could be achieved for them in their community, in the immediate future.

We must pray for the people of Gaza, and we must not cease praying; but I would suggest that we must vote in the interests of the people of our own place, our own constituency. Giving the Labour Party a bloody nose over Gaza might be an immediate moral-sugar-high. Electing an MP who will actually work for the needs of the community in their particularity will certainly be less instantaneously thrilling - but maybe it is more moral.

Article

Assisted dying

Care

Comment

Politics

9 June 2025

5 min read

Suicide prevention groups are abdicating their responsibility on assisted dying

Not speaking out is a dereliction of duty to vulnerable people

Jamie Gillies

Jamie Gillies is a commentator on politics and culture.

Three posters with suicide prevention messages.

Samaritans adverts.

On Friday, Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide bill will return to the Commons for a second day of report stage proceedings – when MPs consider amendments. Third reading, when the House votes on the bill itself, is expected to take place the following Friday. Opponents of this controversial bill will be hoping that enough MPs feel uneasy about it to say ‘this far and no further’. They will need around 30 MPs to have changed their minds since a vote last year in order for a defeat of the legislation to be assured.

As politicians have weighed this issue, there’s been a conspicuous silence from one constituency you’d expect to have been outspoken: suicide prevention organisations. People might be surprised to know that Samaritans, perhaps the best-known suicide prevention charity in the UK, a cornerstone of prevention efforts since the 1950s, did not submit evidence on the bill before Westminster or a separate bill at Holyrood. Other groups like Suicide Prevention UK (SPUK) and Papyrus have also been silent. One has to wonder why, given the bearing a law change would have on their work.

Suicide prevention charities and their volunteer counsellors do incredible work. Over the years, millions of people in desperate circumstances have received life-changing support. Today, every person contacting a suicide prevention helpline is told that their life has value, and that there is hope in the bleakest of circumstances. Every caller without exception is also told not to harm themselves. But this couldn’t continue under an assisted dying law. A two-track approach would have to be devised, depending on a caller’s circumstances. A scenario helps to illustrate this point:

Caller: “I am thinking about ending my life”.

Adviser: “Please know that there is hope. I’m here to listen and I can offer support, so you don’t have to make that choice.”

Caller: “Well, I have terminal cancer you see…”

Adviser: “Oh, sorry, I need to put you through to a colleague. Your situation is a bit more, err, complex. You need to know your legal rights”.

Some proponents of assisted dying are quick to dismiss concerns about suicide prevention, arguing that assisted dying and suicide are wholly separate categories. However, this argument doesn’t hold water. Whilst campaigners use euphemistic terminology and employ Orwellian rhetoric about ‘exercising choice at the end of life’, and people ‘shortening their deaths’, it is clear that the bills they promote would permit suicide with the enablement of the state.

An assisted dying law would see doctors prescribing lethal drugs to certain patients which they can take to end their own lives. The dictionary definition of suicide — “the act of killing yourself intentionally” — has not changed. Neither has legislation giving expression to this idea. Logically and legally then, assisted dying involves suicide.

Samaritans is clear on this. A ‘policy brief’ on assisted dying published in November — the most recent statement on the issue by the organisation — begins by saying that it usually applies to terminally ill people and involves “assisting the person who is terminally ill to hasten their own death”, adding: “The act that kills them is performed by the person themselves”. Their death is a suicide, in other words.

You might assume an organisation that says, “every suicide is one too many”, whose stated aim is to see “fewer people die by suicide”, would be opposed to assisted dying - or at the very least concerned about it. However, Samaritans goes on to say that it does not “take a position on whether assisted dying is right or wrong, or on what the law should be on this matter”. Why? Because it “would involve making a range of judgements” that could compromise people’s “perception of our ability to provide non-judgemental emotional support”.

Samaritans and other suicide prevention organisations should be intensely interested in what the law says. The introduction of assisted dying in any part of the UK would mean suicides being condoned and enabled in healthcare settings for the first time — a radical departure from the existing approach. Professionals always counsel against suicide, no matter a person’s motivation for wanting to end their life. Every citizen is precious, and every life worth saving.

Prevention organisations must also realise that a change of this gravity will have a wider impact on culture. Research shows a rise in non-assisted suicides in countries that have introduced the practice. Sending a message that some suicides are permissible might make their prevention work harder. Organisations saying nothing in the face of all this is astonishing.

As noted above, assisted dying poses practical questions as well as philosophical ones. If the law changes, organisations will no longer be able to adopt a universal approach to suicide prevention. A call to a suicide prevention helpline from a terminally ill person will have to be handled differently to a call from a person who is not terminally ill. For some, suicide would be a healthcare ‘right’. How will organisations navigate this? Doesn’t it concern them?

There has been some advocacy from individuals engaged in suicide prevention, if not from organisations. In February 2024 psychiatrists wrote to The Times to warn that the Westminster assisted dying Bill would “undermine daily efforts to prevent suicide”, particularly among the elderly. Louis Appleby, the UK Government’s suicide prevention adviser has also spoken against a change in the law, arguing that it would harm efforts to drive down suicides.

Appleby explained, “once the principle behind suicide prevention has been set aside, once any part of the ground has been ceded — not only to allow suicide but to assist it — we have lost something we may not get back. There are countless causes of irremediable hardship, many reasons people may want to make despairing choices. Could they become exceptions to suicide prevention too?” This principled position is exactly what you’d expect from someone whose job is protecting hurting people, no matter their personal situations.

I’m loath to criticise suicide prevention groups as I deeply appreciate their work. However, by not contributing to the debate on assisted dying, they are abdicating their responsibility to shape a policy that would impact their mission, and the people they serve. A policy that would lead to state-sanctioned suicides and impact culture in profound ways. It’s terribly sad to see groups that fight to end suicides failing to stand against a policy that would harm their work. Failure to speak today may be viewed as a dereliction of duty in years to come.

With a final vote on Kim Leadbeater’s Bill days away, and the decisive vote on Scottish plans not due for months, there is still time for suicide prevention groups to enter the fray. I pray that they will.

Support Seen & Unseen

Since Spring 2023, our readers have enjoyed over 1,000 articles. All for free.
This is made possible through the generosity of our amazing community of supporters.

If you enjoy Seen & Unseen, would you consider making a gift towards our work?

Do so by joining Behind The Seen. Alongside other benefits, you’ll receive an extra fortnightly email from me sharing my reading and reflections on the ideas that are shaping our times.

Graham Tomlin
Editor-in-Chief

Join Behind The Seen