Memo to MPs: Britain is not America

Goodbye then, Roe v Wade. The US Supreme Court’s decision this week to overturn its ruling on abortion will effectively ban the practice across swathes of America. Millions of Americans are angry; politicians have been quick to proclaim their shock and dismay. But this is Britain, home to some of Europe’s most liberal abortion laws, where self-aggrandisement and West Wing syndrome mean that our own virtue-signalling politicians can’t resist shoehorning themselves into the debate.

Thus far only one elected politician appears to have publicly expressed any kind of support for the decision: Scott Benton, the unorthodox MP from Blackpool South. The tangerine Tory’s (quickly removed) retweet of a celebratory Republican party post was immediately seized upon as proof of a wicked Conservative plot to introduce the Handmaid’s Tale, or something. Quick out the gates was Ash Sarkar of Novara Media who declared ‘There are men in our Parliament who’d take women’s rights back to the Victorian era if they could.’

Next up was Stella Creasy, the achingly right-on Walthamstow MP who never met a camera she didn’t like. The Labour progressive tweeted breathlessly that:

You think what you see in America couldn’t happen here? Then you don’t understand who is organising in UK politics. No one thought American Supreme Court would ever overturn a right previously granted either. These attacks on womens rights won’t stop. Be prepared.

When pressed for, er, any proof that such ‘organising’ was taking place in the UK, Creasy pointed to the debate earlier this year on at-home abortion pills. This consciously ignored the fact that the debate was over a loosening, rather than a tightening, of abortion restrictions that had initially been intended only as a temporary response to Covid.

Helen Morgan, the newly-elected MP for North Shropshire, meanwhile chose to broadcast her own constitutional illiteracy to the world by tweeting to fox-killing QC Jolyon Maugham: ‘Does the ECHR currently protect a woman’s right to control her own body in the UK, and if so does Raab’s Bill of Rights threaten it?’ As Levins solicitors pointed out in reply: ‘the right to abortion in England, Wales and Scotland is provided for in the Abortion Act 1967. It is a much more substantial right than anything the ECHR protects. It is not under threat, and never has been since it was enacted.’

While the overturning of Roe v Wade might be shocking, it should come as no surprise to anyone who was paying attention. It was the product of four decades of intense conservative political activity, often during very public battles over Supreme Court appointments. There is no equivalent to the Federalist Society in Britain nor any comparable public demand. Our judges are impartial and appointed without fuss: parliament is sovereign and has shown no desire to fundamentally alter the 1967 settlement.

It’s one thing to criticise the Supreme Court’s ruling; it’s quite another to conflate two different political cultures and suggest the same thing will happen here. Mr S is an unashamed Atlanticist but America’s struggles are not always our own. There is virtually no political appetite in this country for the criminalisation of abortion; when Jeremy Hunt suggested reducing the legal time time limit in 2019 he was castigated by even his own fellow Tories. Polls show consistent public support for abortion, with Britain still having a longer legal time frame for abortions than France (14 weeks) and Germany (12 weeks).

Creasy, Morgan and their supporters are by all means welcome to live action role play American politics. But to do so under the pretence of compassion is misleading to say the least.