Candidate is not out of line with the public on abortion

Into the Labour leadership race, with all its infighting over who is the most purely, progressively Left, is injected an unlikely controversy.

Rebecca Long-bailey, the Corbynite candidate and MP for Salford and Eccles, is, it turns out, Catholic.

Who knew? All of us do now, as it appears that she takes her faith seriously enough to dare to depart from the liberal consensus on abortion. She disagrees with allowing abortion on grounds of disability after the standard limit of 24 weeks and believes disability and non-disability should be considered equal when it comes to the value of human life.

She has made clear this is a personal view – that, regardless, she supports a woman’s right to choose and points out she voted in favour of extending abortion rights in Northern Ireland. In other words, like many Christians she believes that though she finds abortion morally repugnant and not something she would undergo, she does not believe the state has a right to legislate over a woman’s body.

Never mind. Even to admit to a religious belief is enough to set the cat among the liberati. She is, cry the high chieftains of metropolitan wokeness, beyond the pale and should forthwith be cancelled from public life.

She is actually not particularly out of line with the public. While attitudes to abortion are becoming more liberal – a Natcen poll in 2017 found 70 per cent support it if the mother does not want the child – the most recent poll on time limits (by Comres, also in 2017) found seven in 10 women were in favour of reducing the time limit on abortion to 20 weeks or lower.

The reality is abortion brings into conflict mutually exclusive propositions – freedom of women to have control over their bodies and the right of a child to exist. Many wrestle with this but few have to do it in public.

What is problematic for the liberal intelligentsia is her views are informed by her faith – something that seems increasingly incompatible with “progressive” politics. Would those who race to denounce Catholics take issue with, say, a Muslim in public office with similar views? Ms Longbailey seems to demonstrate a true understanding of the freedom of belief – she is open about her stance while not seeking to force others into her moral framework. It’s a shame her detractors cannot extend the same courtesy to her.