Distressed pro-assisted dying campaigners react at Parliament Square in London after MPs voted by 286 votes to 270 against the bill. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPA View image in fullscreen Distressed pro-assisted dying campaigners react at Parliament Square in London after MPs voted by 286 votes to 270 against the bill. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPA Assisted dying ‘A tragic day’: campaigners react as MPs say no to legalising assisted dying Opponents say proposed law change for England and Wales was ‘unsafe and unworkable’ after bill is narrowly defeated
Alexandra Topping Political correspondent Fri 11 Sep 2026 19.45 CEST Last modified on Sat 12 Sep 2026 03.30 CEST Share Prefer the Guardian on Google A s it became clear that MPs had voted against the assisted dying bill , campaigners who had fought for a change in the law looked broken. Standing outside the Houses of Parliament, many wearing pink caps and T-shirts with slogans such as “Give me choice over my death”, they held on to each other for comfort. Some were in tears, others stood in shocked silence.
MP Lauren Edwards, who sponsored the bill that would have allowed terminally ill adults in England and Wales with six months or less to live to seek medical assistance to end their lives, said its failure to pass was disappointing “for the many thousands of terminally ill people and their loved ones who were given hope when the Commons voted for this bill last year”.
“It is all the more heartbreaking for them because support for choice at the end of life is still as strong in parliament as it was before,” she said. “The objections raised today were not about the principle of assisted dying but about parliamentary process.”
Longtime assisted dying campaigner Esther Rantzen, who has terminal cancer and said she no longer had the strength to join supporters in Parliament Square, told the BBC: “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.”
Her daughter Rebecca Wilcox said she was devastated about the failure of the bill, a near-identical version of one which passed through the Commons but was blocked in the Lords , after being talked out of time by a handful of peers. “I don’t think it’s a vandalism of democracy, I think it’s a demolition of democracy,” she said.
As it was declared in the Commons that the bill had been defeated by 286 votes to 270, there were some cheers, some gasps and then a brief moment of silence as MPs processed what they had just heard.
Among those who had opposed the bill there was relief, but little celebration. In a joint statement, the Labour MPs Ashley Dalton, Meg Hillier and Jess Asato called it “unsafe and unworkable”, but they understood “the deep concerns of so many people” who had campaigned for a change in the law.
4:36 MPs recount personal experiences as they debate assisted dying bill – video Dalton played a critical role in the highly emotive debate that preceded the vote. About 70 MPs had put their names forward to speak and the chamber was almost full.
The former minister, who is undergoing chemotherapy to manage incurable stage 4 breast cancer, revealed that she had received a terminal diagnosis ahead of the second reading of the bill, but had kept it to herself.
“When you hear those words, depression, anxiety, grief, fear, shame, and guilt come in bounds. Suicide risk is highest immediately after diagnosis, and it usually falls quickly within thre…