Stalinist tactics must be resisted

Gordon Brown announced yesterday that he would not be allowing a conscience vote on any of the controversial moral issues within the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. In so doing he ignored requests for a free vote from the leader of the opposition, from other MPs including those within his own party, from 108 professors with varying views on the bill itself and from Cardinal O'Brien. The government is now headed for it biggest confrontation yet with the Catholic Church.

Labour MPs have been advised that they must either support government policy – which means voting for animal human hybrids, saviour siblings, embryo selection and disposal, so-called 'therapeutic cloning', the production of embryos with three parents, artificial gametes and the removal of fathers from birth certificates of children conceived by IVF – or they must stay away. If, driven by conscience and their own assessment of the evidence, they decide that it is right to vote against government policy they risk having the whip withdrawn – and being removed from the party.

This creates a huge problem for MPs with religious convictions and those who after an objective assessment of the scientific evidence have decided that the government is travelling up a dead end street. Catholics on the Labour front bench – namely Ruth Kelly, Des Browne and Paul Murphy – have a big problem. Do they obey God or government? Do they put conscience first and risk losing their jobs, or do they compromise their faith and go with the party. There are many back-benchers, amongst them Jim Dobbin, chair of the All Party Prolife Group, who face a similar dilemma.

Staying away during the vote is not an option in my view. The government is wrong on the fundamental moral issues in this bill which strikes at the heart of family, life and what it means to be human and it must be opposed. In the words of the apostles when threatened – 'we serve God and not men'. In biblical times and throughout church history people of faith have recognised that being faithful to God means counting the cost and paying the price – 'Here I stand I can do no other' said Luther. And more than ethics is at stake. The government and scientists whose research grants depend on a green light for new research, and sympathetic MPs have already tried to spin this as being about the church holding up scientific progress – but with animal human hybrids in particular there are troubling questions about whether such technology is even necessary now that there are more effective ethical alternatives like adult stem cells, cord blood stem cells, and reprogrammed somatic cells

The Liberal Democrat and Conservative leaders have quite rightly granted a conscience vote on all aspects of the bill. But Labour MPs who wish to stand up for what they believe have no choice but to risk their futures by voting against the government – anything less would be complicity and compromise. They must call Mr Brown's bluff and say to him, 'Do your worst'. Catholic MP Joe Benton has already warned that some Labour MPs will rebel.

I would hope also that a sizeable contingent of other government MPs, who do not share their colleagues' faith convictions or views on the evidence, will also vote against the whip as a symbolic gesture. It was Voltaire who famously declared, 'I may not share your convictions but will fight to the death for your right to express them'.

Forcing ones own front and back bench MPs to absent themselves from voting on a crucial moral issue or face discipline is a Stalinist tactic, not befitting of a British Prime Minister. But Mr Brown may come to realise this only if he loses the support of some of his most loyal troops. Let's encourage our MPs to defy the whip – for the sake of liberty, justice and democracy. If you have a Labour MP, write to him or her now.