London The British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, can achieve a political miracle never seen before: make the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square, in front of the Palace of Westminster, speak. The reason: the smoke from cigars… and cigarettes, and their prohibition. The Alpha generation is the main recipient of a law that wants to build a long-term smoke-free society, at least that of tobacco. Because vaporizers would not have so many restrictions, although they want to make them much less attractive to young people, who use them the most. This evening the second reading will be voted on, starting the legislative process. A vote that will show, once again, the cracks within the British Conservative Party.
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During the congress of the Tories last October, Sunak took this legislative proposal up his sleeve with which he intended to leave a mark for future generations, aware as he was then of the difficulties of revalidating the position at the polls; when they finally set, most likely in the fall. The basic point of the project is that everyone born after 2009, who are now 15 years old, can never legally buy cigarettes or cigars, raising the minimum legal age to do so by one year every year. In theory, seven decades from now, if the characteristics of the population pyramid are taken into account, the UK would become a smoke-free country. The policy is inspired by that of New Zealand.
Aware of the resistance caused by the debate among his co-religionists, Sunak has left the conservative MPs free to vote. And it is expected that more than fifty will vote against it. Even three members of the government could end up joining the rebels or at least abstain, according to the British press. However, Sunak believes that “sometimes, you have to do the right thing even if it’s hard.”
Weaken the ‘premier’
The majority the government now has in the Chamber is 51 deputies – it started 2019 with 81, but the tories have been losing partial elections – and this means that if 26 conservatives vote against the plans of premier, this will depend on Labor votes to push the law forward. The opposition, however, has already announced that it will support it. And this is a detail that among the ranks of the government bench is considered little more than an anathema, crossing a red line. Some prominent Conservative figures, including Boris Johnson and Liz Truss –expremières– or Suella Braverman –former Minister of the Interior–, are fiercely opposed: perhaps for a matter of principles that they identify with the freedom of personal choices, but also, in return, to undermine Sunak’s authority, each weaker blow
Truss, the former prime minister who lasted only 45 days in office, has made opposition to the anti-tobacco law a banner of liberal values. Truss is actually making a comeback, or trying to, with the publication of a memoir. And in recent days he has bluntly blessed a new presidency of Donald Trump, or the inclusion of the racist Nigel Farage – another against the law – as a conservative deputy candidate for the next elections. However, he describes Sunak’s initiative as a typical example of “thebeen a nanny“, which tells its citizens what they can and cannot do; and Boris Johnson has called the whole thing “absolute madness”.
Health Minister Victoria Atkins, who will introduce the bill, says smoking is “extremely harmful” and that the bill will save thousands of lives. “Many people know someone whose life has been tragically shortened or irreversibly changed by smoking, which, despite significant progress, remains the UK’s biggest preventable killer,” he said hours earlier to stand in front of the lectern in the chamber of Westminster.
The most anarcholiberal sector among the tories he still hopes that the aforementioned huge bronze figure of the Old Lion, as if he were the watchdog of the quality of British democracy, will be removed from his pedestal, in some kind of signal to the true Tories to stop the project or , at the very least, so that they reform and lower it as it progresses through the proceedings in the Commons and the Lords. From the magnitude of the Conservative opposition this evening some conclusions will be drawn about Sunak’s real strength: less than much.
As for the future ban on tobacco, it will take a long time to come, if it ever comes. In fact, the law will most likely not be sanctioned by King Charles III before the general election. Then it will be the new government – Labor, with all certainty – that will have to decide whether to reactivate it or not. And with this or any other excuse, a more than predictable Conservative Party under minimums will split even more: between a Trumpist soul and a traditionally conservative British one, not excessively populist.
2024-04-16 10:29:24
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