𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Dame Esther Rantzen has said it is a “tragic day” after the assisted dying bill was defeated in a House of Commons vote. MPs voted 286 to 270 against allowing the reintroduced Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill to continue on the path to becoming law. Outside Parliament, Dame Esther’s daughter Rebecca Wilcox held up her phone so her mother could deliver a short statement.

The broadcasting legend said: “I’m so sad that people in this country won’t have the choice so many terminally ill adults have in other countries, of shortening their own deaths by asking for help. I am sure a change in the law will come. I am deeply sad that it won’t come soon enough for many of the people who need it. It’s a tragic day.”

Dame Esther is living with stage four lung cancer and joined the fight to legalise assisted dying after revealing in 2023 that she had registered with Dignitas.

The result comes after the veteran campaigner revealed she was dying in the manner she had feared and is now too “fragile” to travel to the Swiss assisted dying clinic.

Rebecca, 46, said her mum was “on her deathbed” but felt strongly enough to share the public statement. Rebecca warned that the Commons’ decision had “rewarded cheating and lying and filibustering, and breaking the rules”.

She added: “I am devastated. It think this is a travesty. Mum’s completely right that it is a tragic day. I think it’s a demolition of democracy.

“There was a democratic process that was fair, that was voted on, and those few peers were smiling and happy in that building then. They looked like the cat that got the cream because they knew that through cheating, lying and filibustering they won today.

“And people like my mum lost today, in such a huge way. This was never going to come in time for my family but it was going to come in time for other people.

“It was going to come within four years and we were suddenly a brilliant country again that had empathy at its core.

“I am so devastated, and so many people in there are devastated, because what has happened does not reflect the will of the majority at all.”

Asked what is next for the campaign, Rebecca said: “We go again. I think partly today was a reaction to the Parliament Act, the fact that there couldn’t be more amendments on it. We will regroup and we will be stronger than ever.”

Earlier in the morning, Dignity in Dying chief executive Sarah Wootton paid tribute to “courageous and tenacious” campaigners like Dame Esther. She said the Childline founder and her family had “fearlessly, tirelessly, compassionately worked for change”.

Ms Wootton added: “They have been a spearhead that has helped us make the gains that we have made.”