Two votes in the Commons, split by four days, have laid the ground for a seismic shift in British social policy, making last week one of the most significant in the modern history of parliament.
But while the votes on abortion (Tuesday) and assisted dying (Friday) were officially matters of individual conscience, the evidence from both suggests that the UK is now closer than ever to a US-style party politicisation of moral issues.
If you vote Labour or Lib Dem, you are much more likely to get a pro-choice MP; if you vote Conservative or Reform, you are more likely to get an MP who is against abortion. This is not an accident: it is increasingly by design.
How parties voted on life and death
On Tuesday, an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill to decriminalise abortion up to birth, laid down by Labour Gower MP Tonia Antoniazzi, won by 379 to 137.
Looking at these figures in detail, we can see that 291 Labour MPs voted in favour and just 25 against, while 63 Lib Dems were in favour and only two against.
On the other side of the vote, 92 Tory MPs voted against and just four in favour. Another four abstained by voting in both lobbies. No Reform MPs supported the amendment, and four voted against it.
The split was not as stark on Friday’s assisted dying vote, but nevertheless revealed a trend.
Kim Leadbeater’s bill had the support of 224 of her fellow Labour MPs, with 160 against, and 56 Lib Dems, with 15 against.
Meanwhile, the Tories split 92 against to 20 in favour, while Reform were three against and two in favour.
Kemi Badenoch put a two-line whip on the abortion vote rather than allowing a completely free vote. This indicated a party position without the threat of disciplinary action that would come with a three-line whip. But remarkably, after the abortion vote, senior Tories were complaining that Badenoch had not withdrawn the whip of the four MPs who voted for decriminalisation.
It was different in 1967
The last time the UK saw its parliament vote on such seismic social change was back in 1967, with Liberal MP David Steel’s abortion legislation and Labour MP Leo Abse’s Sexual Offences Act, which decriminalised homosexuality.
In both of those cases, parties split down the middle on conscience votes, which saw the odd alliance of right-wing Tory MP Enoch Powell and left-wing Labour MP Tony Benn as they came together to support legalising homosexuality.
The Ed Miliband effect
The erosion of the conscience vote in the UK has actually come more from a hardening of positions within progressive left-wing parties in Britain, exacerbated by the so-called culture wars.
In 2012, Ed Miliband imposed a three-line whip on Labour MPs for the vote on gay marriage. That was the end of LGBT+ matters being treated as a question of individual conscience.
Then in 2019, Roger Godsiff was dropped as a Labour candidate for supporting parents in his Birmingham constituency who were protesting against primary-school children being taught about same-sex relationships.
This year, we have seen Reform UK banning LGBT+ flags from county halls in places where it has taken control, and attempting to purge councils of diversity, equality and inclusion officers and policies.
And there is not even a pretence when it comes to transgender issues now, with Tories and Reform firmly in the anti camp, and Badenoch making her gender-critical stance part of her political identity.
While abortion has officially remained a matter of conscience, a comment by the now home secretary Yvette Cooper in 2017 about Jacob Rees-Mogg being unfit to be a party leader because of his views on abortion was enlightening.
What has happened over a number of years is that the majority of socially conservative, mostly Catholic tradition in Labour, and evangelical tradition in the Lib Dems, have been quietly removed through screening during the selection process.
David Campanale vs the Lib Dems
An ongoing legal case involving the Liberal Democrats and one of its former candidates has highlighted an apparently major shift in British politics towards the party politicisation of conscience issues.
Former BBC journalist David Campanale was kicked out as the candidate for Sutton and Cheam ahead of the last election, and he claims it was because of his Christian beliefs.
According to documents presented in the case, Luke Taylor, who replaced Campanale as the candidate, is alleged to have claimed that the party of past prominent Liberal Democrats with Christian beliefs, such as Shirley Williams and Charles Kennedy, was “over”, and that he and others were building a “secular party” that would have no place for Christians expecting to “hold to their religious or conscientious opinions”.
Taylor was the teller for the votes in favour of the abortion amendment on Tuesday, and he described the vote in favour of the assisted dying bill, which he supported, as a good way to “neatly bookend the week”.
If Campanale wins his case, it will for the first time provide evidence that selection is taking place on conscience issues as well as other matters.
The Lib Dems have denied the claims and pointed out that their leader, Ed Davey, goes to church. But some Christian Lib Dems, including former deputy leader Simon Hughes, have voiced concerns, and the party has been condemned by two bishops and a former Archbishop of Canterbury. Added to that, Tim Farron, who voted against abortion and assisted dying last week, was ousted as leader over his Christian beliefs in 2017.
During the assisted dying vote, a number of supporters of the bill suggested that religious belief had no place in deciding such issues. A real departure from conscience. But a brand of conservatism is emerging in the UK that openly embraces traditional Christian values.
Reflecting on the assisted dying vote, Tory MP Danny Kruger, a leading opponent of the bill, said: “If we are to withstand our enemies, bring our society together, and tame the technium (somehow ensure that human values govern the new age of machines), we are going to need values that are up to the job.
“I don’t think humanist atheism, or progressive liberalism, or whatever the new religion should be called, is up to it. Christianity is. Only Christianity is.”
A warning from America
In the US, the conscience vote rapidly became more party-politicised as a result of the Roe v Wade abortion ruling in in 1973. Social conservatives gradually began to take over the Republicans on the right, and social progressives started to take over the Democrats. This in turn has had an impact on the selection of Supreme Court justices, who recently in effect overturned Roe v Wade with a conservative majority.
The most interesting US development is the way in which a man like Donald Trump, previously ambivalent over abortion, has adopted a strong anti-abortion line in an effort to please his base. This played out in the 2022 midterms, to the detriment of the Republicans, with the Democrats using the threat to abortion rights to great effect. But it did little to help Kamala Harris in 2024.
What that shows, though, is that parties with very strong views one way or the other can be elected largely on economic grounds but bring with them a great deal of baggage on conscience issues. After this week, some would argue that the same thing has happened, in the opposite direction, in the UK.
