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(Bloomberg) — A few days after Labour’s landslide election victory in July, politicians gathered with aides and journalists at one of British politics’ glitzy annual summer parties. But amid the celebrating and free-flowing champagne, some senior ministers and staff were already worrying about a looming political headache — the promise Prime Minister Keir Starmer had made to allow a vote on legalizing assisted dying “early” in his administration. 

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Those fears voiced in the garden of an historic Westminster townhouse have proved prescient. Interviews with more than a dozen lawmakers and their aides ahead of an initial vote on Friday revealed how Members of Parliament are agonizing over the issue. Starmer’s cabinet is divided, and even some of his senior team wish the government could focus on something else.

The timing is far from ideal. Starmer came to power promising a “decade of national renewal” and to turbocharge economic growth, but Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves’ debut budget to fix the public finances with higher taxes has triggered a major political battle with businesses and farmers. Then there’s a highly charged geopolitical situation, from Ukraine and the Middle East to Donald Trump’s return to the White House occupying the premier’s focus.

Still, Starmer sees decriminalizing assisted dying as a conviction issue. Like his approach to other areas of government, he leans on his experience as a former director of director of public prosecutions. “I personally do think there are grounds for changing the law,” he said last year. He promised ahead of the election that MPs would be given a free vote on assisted dying, meaning they would debate and vote untethered from party positions.

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Friday’s vote will be the first on the issue since 2015. If the bill passes (there are more debates and votes before that), it would be a fundamental social reform bringing England and Wales into line with about a dozen countries that permit assisted dying such as Canada and Switzerland, as well as 11 US states. 

Assisted dying has substantial public backing, with surveys consistently showing support for a legal change that would give Britons an alternative to traveling overseas to clinics including Dignitas in Switzerland. High-profile celebrities including TV presenter Esther Rantzen, who was diagnosed with lung cancer, have brought public attention to the issue. 

A YouGov poll published Friday found 73% of Britons believe that assisted dying should be legal in the UK, compared to 13% who say it should not. That picture was consistent among voters of all the major parties, the pollster said.

Still, it’s far from clear the bill will have MPs’ support, even though it is significantly narrower in scope than in some other countries. Under the proposed law, assisted dying would be restricted to adults with a terminal illness who are expected to die within six months. Two doctors and a high court judge would also be required to approve the decision. It broadly follows the US state of Oregon model, meaning the lethal drugs must be self-administered.

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Opponents argue those restrictions could be watered down in future, and the bill could be a staging post toward a far looser approach to assisted dying.

Other hurdles facing the bill’s backers are more procedural. The law is being introduced not by the government but by an individual Labour MP, Kim Leadbeater, with ministers officially not taking a public position. Starmer has stuck to that, though his position is well known. People familiar with the matter expect him to vote for it, and friends from the legal profession including Labour peer Charlie Falconer are prominent campaigners for the change. 

Yet by declining to voice his support publicly — and with Downing Street emphasizing his neutrality — Starmer has put British politics in the peculiar position of having a premier backing major social reforms, but without showing personal leadership on the issue in the way ex-premier David Cameron, for example, did during a free vote on gay marriage in 2013.

“I don’t think [Starmer] has fully thought through the political consequences of this for him if it falls,” Steve Richards, a Labour-leaning political commentator, said on his Rock & Roll Politics podcast. “It will be associated with his government if it gets through and will be seen as a lost opportunity for Starmer if it fails.” Starmer should be showing more “leaderly guile,” he said. 

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There is precedent for Starmer’s approach. Former Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s Labour government is known for introducing pioneering abortion and homosexuality liberalization laws in the late 1960s — in both cases adopting the same process of supporting an individual MP to draft and propose the legislation and allowing parliamentary time for debate.

Starmer has said in the past that Wilson is his favorite Labour leader.

But the strategy comes with risk, as some commentators think support is gradually ebbing away from the bill.

More uncomfortably for Starmer, Health Secretary Wes Streeting is said to be showing leadership on the issue that the premier hasn’t — and in the opposing direction. At a meeting of the Labour parliamentary party, Streeting said he opposed the bill over fears people would be coerced into choosing to end their lives, according to people familiar with the matter.

He then expanded on his views on TV and radio, and ordered civil servants to conduct an impact assessment of the cost of the policy, saying it would cost money to set up a new body to deliver the end-of-life assistance. Streeting backed assisted dying at the last vote on the issue in 2015.

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Since his interventions, many cabinet ministers have expressed their views when pressed by the media. Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood, who like Streeting would have a role in implementing the new law, said she would vote against it on religious grounds. Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner is also set to vote against the measure, according to people familiar with the matter, though she has not stated her position publicly.

The media scrutiny has caused frustration with Streeting in the cabinet, and Starmer himself held a meeting with his health secretary to express his displeasure, according to people familiar with the matter.

Streeting is seen to have leadership ambitions, but his intervention puts him at odds with many on his own flank of the party and, his allies think, with the majority of Labour MPs. His supporters insist he had no ulterior motive, and regrets putting the prime minister in an uncomfortable position.

Many MPs remain undecided, with the question dominating conversations in the tearooms and corridors of Westminster. For some lawmakers who have only had the role for just over four months, the vote is causing distress as their inboxes fill with arguments for and against. 

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Some new Labour MPs who instinctively favored the bill are now leaning toward voting against it over fears that protections against coercion are not strong enough. But those involved in bringing the bill before Parliament still say that if everyone who has pledged their support votes in favor on Friday, it will pass.

In Starmer’s office, some aides are worried about the consequences if it does. There are lots of big policies in the Labour manifesto that need energy and time – and assisted dying isn’t one of them, one person said. If it passes they will respect the will of Parliament, the person emphasized, but they would prefer not to allocate time to something Labour did not include in the manifesto.

That puts some in 10 Downing Street at odds with the premier himself — a position that is far from ideal. If the bill fails, many in government will breathe a sigh of relief. But Starmer will have failed to show leadership on an issue he cares about, and that could cause political damage.

Given that, the best course of action may be to hit the brakes, for Leadbeater to withdraw the bill and allow time for a review, former Labour shadow chancellor Ed Balls said on his Political Currency podcast.

“There isn’t yet enough solidity, and the government has to kind of engage in this more,” Balls said, adding it should be a government legislation when it returns. “That is the best way, and I think it may be the only way.”

—With assistance from Alex Wickham.

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