AS PREDICTED, the debate around the Assisted Dying Bill is framed by liberal politicians, the media and celebrities as one of “human rights” and “choice and autonomy.”

Where such legislation has been enacted, irrefutable evidence shows the original criteria that restricted “choice” to the terminally ill was quickly extended to those with non-terminal conditions, the disabled and mentally ill, those who consider themselves a “burden,” and those the neoliberal elite consider a burden on society — the poor and homeless.

Such concerns are airily dismissed by slick politicians who dishonestly claim the debate is about providing a “choice” between palliative care and assisted dying that all should be entitled to. Such lies. These people are perfectly aware the provision of palliative care, like all medical care, is in crisis due to lack of funding, research and development.

Aware British people largely hold secular opinions, political propagandists like Baron Falconer aim to distract by discrediting opponents by implying their objections rest on religious notions of the “sanctity of life” rather than concrete legal, societal and political reasons.

The Bill’s safeguards say assisted death must be approved by two doctors and a High Court judge. These assurances are utterly worthless. Evidence from Oregon, Canada and elsewhere clearly demonstrate medical and legal guarantees of impartiality and oversight rapidly degrade into a bureaucratic box-ticking exercise with real scrutiny and compassion abandoned.

Let us say again — this is a class issue. And one with the most profound implications for the most basic of collective rights: the right to life.

The silence of the trade unions and many on the left on this goes beyond legitimate “differences of opinion” and is a reflection of the vice-like grip of liberal notions of individual “rights and autonomy” that obscures the fact that placing the right to die in the hands of a state that operates on the basis of profit before people will exercise it in its interests, not ours.

In the same week the Bill is to be debated, Keir Starmer, who is behind this legislation whatever impression of “neutrality” he seeks to present, has relaunched the war begun by Thatcher, embraced by New Labour and super-charged under David Cameron and George Osborne’s austerity measures, against the disabled and sick.

The same people pushing this legislation lecture us about dwindling resources and “hard choices,” but won’t tax obscene wealth and drive the race to the bottom every bit as much as the Tories did. They cannot, and should not, ever be trusted.

Our movement should intervene in this debate with clear demands, including full funding of the NHS and hospices, resources for research and development of the best possible palliative care, and a complete end to privatisation and profiteering of the NHS.

If the politicians and the well-heeled celebrities who will have considerably more “choice” in how they die than an impoverished or disabled worker agree to such demands and are also prepared to research and present honest evidence of how such legislation has been abused wherever it has become law, then there may be the basis for a genuine debate.

Until then — no to assisted dying.