The second reading of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill takes place on Tuesday (April 16).
Forest has written to every Conservative MP with a copy of our ‘Say No to Nanny!’ pamphlet (right) and a covering letter.
It’s still not clear how many will vote against the generational ban. My pessimistic guess is that relatively few will want to rock the boat so close to the local elections on May 2, but you never know.
What happens after that remains to be seen. A catastrophic defeat for the Tories and … who knows what their reaction might be. A new leader, perhaps?
The good news is that former PM Boris Johnson has made his views known. Speaking in Canada yesterday, he described the generational ban as “absolutely nuts”.
Johnson attacked the policy at the Canada Strong and Free conference in Ottawa, where he appeared on a panel with the former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott and the political commentator John O’Sullivan.
Johnson said: “When I look at some of the things we are doing now, or that are being done in the name of conservatism, I think they’re absolutely nuts.”
So that’s two former Tory prime minsters - Liz Truss and now Boris - who are fiercely opposed to the policy.
We know that many Conservative MPs share their views so let’s hope Boris’s timely intervention encourages more of them to stand up and be counted.
Does Rishi really want to be remembered for needing the support of opposition MPs to get one of his flagship policies through the House?
By the way, I stand by my view that, for all his faults, Boris ‘deserved a full parliament and the chance to return to the electorate and let them decide his future’. (See Boris: what a waste.)
I’m not saying he was a good PM, but at least he was a relatively liberal one. (I’ll excuse him the Covid lockdowns and even his Net Zero targets.)
And he couldn’t be more right about this:
The party of Winston Churchill wants to ban cigars … Donnez moi un break, as they say in Quebec. It’s just mad.”