The smoking ban is emblematic of how the Tories lost their way
The generational smoking ban shows what happens when Conservatives go against their instincts, says Karl McCartney
When you are fortunate enough to be elected as an MP you have many issues that you might wish to pursue. In my and many of my former colleagues’ cases, these issues reflected basic Conservative values, encompassing a range of traditional and pragmatic ideas.
Unfortunately, my Party, the Conservative Party, spent our time in office poorly, passing some laws that were far from Conservative. Our failings emboldened those in the supporting casts of the Civil Service and quangos… also known as “The Establishment”.
This is important. The Labour Party has parked its tanks on our lawn; they have not needed too, but Reform has. Our Party imploded ideologically, having ceded many arguments to the left. Ministers consistently made galling ‘left-leaning’ announcements and policy judgements – all designed to win over ‘voters’ and the media who never supported us.
Many of those that joined or unduly influenced our Party’s leadership in the recent past, and present, were no true Conservatives. We all know some of our MPs just wanted to be an MP, rather than a Conservative MP. Only there for self-aggrandisement, talking a good game or saying what a Leader wants to hear. Regrettably, many seem to have made their way to the House of Lords or into the media and continue to snipe at those trying to fix the Conservative Party.
The Brexit Vote of 2016 was another missed opportunity due to the unwillingness of Remainers to accept the vote and act accordingly – most MPs (and Lords), including Conservative ones that made such a fuss of their anti-EU banner waving and chest beating at every safe-seat selection hustings, were culpable.
They ignored the popular vote and thwarted the benefits and opportunities the UK could have had. Instead, they chose to ensure that our country and the business sector, including farming, was saddled with red tape and more bureaucracy, when the opposite should have occurred. It is bonkers, and this Labour government is making it worse.
Labour are crippling UK small businesses with bureaucracy, burdensome taxes and unsuitable trading conditions. We have an under-qualified and over-promoted Chancellor and a Labour government that loves tax rises for the private sector.
Labour has recently picked up the misjudged plan for a generational smoking ban that is age discriminatory, pure nonsensical overreach. It is a clear example of the wrongheaded, bureaucratic thinking that dominated our time in government, and it could now be law by Christmas.
It is a fundamentally un-Conservative idea and will pile more legislation on small businesses and retailers that do not want or need to be the enforcers of this un-enforceable new law. New Zealand rowed back pretty quickly on similar proposed legislation as they realised a few months in it was poorly-thought out, discriminatory and unworkable – and they did not have European markets where tobacco will remain freely available, nor constitutional arrangements in Northern Ireland to contend with. We do.
If Chris Whitty was the ‘bright-spark’ behind this proposed so-called ‘progressive smoking ban’ policy, then maybe he could explain how we see ourselves through the issues that such a policy would cause: the economic impacts to small retailers, tourism effects, and how anyone might justify a public policy that selectively treats some of its citizens in this way, because of their date of birth.
Unworkable
How will it be enforced, and why should retailers and their staff enforce such an unworkable ban?
Perhaps, finally, the real kicker in this whole saga of a truly ill-conceived policy is the Northern Ireland Question. The Windsor Framework is fragile; it has no sound basis and is inflexible at best. It is a sticking plaster that has long since worn out and the wound it was supposed to cover up is as fresh as ever. Northern Ireland remains aligned with certain EU single market rules, supposedly ensuring that no controls are required at the border with the Republic of Ireland. There are no similar bans on purchases, nor any ‘in the offing’ in the EU, so the UK ban proposals would contradict current EU rules and will almost certainly not be able to be applied in Northern Ireland.
This then creates a dichotomy that is surreal: someone born in 2009 will be able to legally buy cigarettes in Belfast, but not in Bristol or Birkenhead. If the UK government chooses to impose customs checks on travellers within the UK (itself a breach of the Windsor Framework and the promise made to Brexit voters on maintaining the integrity of the Union), anyone of a certain age from the UK mainland can go to Northern Ireland, stock up on their cigarettes and return. It will create yet more completely preventable friction in an already troubled relationship between Dublin, London and Brussels.
I am no defender of smoking, but I am in favour of personal choice and freedom. There are better ways to effectively and with a light-touch reduce smoking – as has been apparent in recent decades – but creating problems for small businesses, impairing personal freedoms and risking repercussions across the EU seems a bit over the top.