King Charles III inaugurated Britain’s next parliamentary term on Tuesday, November 7, reciting the King’s customary speech written by the country’s prime minister, and reiterated Rishi Sunak’s aim to phase out smoking in Britain by banning the next generation and those born after 2009 from buying tobacco commercially and in shops.
“My Government will introduce legislation to create a smoke-free generation by restricting the sale of tobacco so that children currently aged fourteen or younger can never be sold cigarettes, and restricting the sale and marketing of e-cigarettes to children.” said King Charles on the 7th of November 2023 addressing the Parliament. At the same time, there were external rallies of republican anti-monarchists with placards saying “[he is] not my king”.
Rishi Sunak’s initiative to phase out smoking by raising the minimum age to buy tobacco by one year each year was deployed at the Conservative annual party conference in the city of Manchester just days before the start of the war in Israel between Israelis and the Palestinian Hamas, where he made the announcement at the urging of anti-smokers and supporters and has since grown into an election campaign “promise” of his party and the corresponding threat to the right of choice of consumers. It was also the 21st bill proposed through the speech of King Charles III.
But not all Conservative MPs would vote for such a bill, and those who support it versus opponents are divided between themselves and each group is likely to topple the other while it is Labour that agrees and is close to voting for the bill.
The smokers’ rights group Forest condemned the decision to make the announcement and within the same day organised an event and dinner with speakers scheduled for Monday 20 November where its chairman Simon Clark will deliver a speech with the director of the Academy of Ideas Baroness Claire Fox, columnist Henry Hill of the publication Conservative Home, Ella Welhan from the Academy of Ideas and Reem Ibrahim, head of communications from the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs.
Simon Clark, the chairman of the smokers’ rights group Forest, said later in the day that “This is the worst form of nanny state regulation because it treats consenting adults like children. If you’re old enough to vote, drive a car, join the army, and purchase alcohol, you’re old enough to buy cigarettes and other tobacco products. Declaring war on tobacco will only drive future generations of adult smokers to the black market. The biggest benefactor from prohibition won’t be public health but criminal gangs and other illicit traders. Given everything else that is going on in the world, at home and abroad, it’s staggering that a Conservative government would waste valuable parliamentary time banning the sale of tobacco to adults who are perfectly capable of making informed decisions for themselves.”
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