Big day tomorrow for everyone who has been campaigning against the EU's revised Tobacco Products Directive.
I'll have more information about Forest's No Thank EU campaign in the morning.
In the meantime my colleague Brian Monteith, who edits Forest's Free Society website, has written an excellent article for Conservative Home.
Here's a taste:
Labour MEP Linda MacAvan has made available the letter from Jeremy Hunt that has been sent to all Conservative MEPs. In it he clearly states the UK government’s (and therefore presumably the Prime Minister’s) support of the EU plans. Yes really. In his letter he could not be clearer:
'Ahead of the plenary vote on the proposal for a revised Tobacco Products Directive on 8 October, I wanted to set out how important I think this legislation is to improve public health and protect young people from the harms of tobacco.'
And:
'The UK Government considers the revised Tobacco Products Directive to be crucial to more effective tobacco control across the EU.'
Quite how this fits with the Conservative party’s public stance on Europe is anybody’s guess. It will be interesting to see Conservative MEPs explain to voters on the doorsteps across the next few months how the Conservative party’s decision to hand over public health policy matters to the EU sits with its leader’s commitment to curtail the powers of Europe.
Full article: Government wants to stem flow of powers to Europe so why does it support these new EU-led laws on tobacco? (Conservative Home)
Update: Another Free Society writer, Martin Cullip, has written this article for Spiked – A puffed-up scare over menthol cigarettes.
Worth reading.