In the United Kingdom, MPs approve a law to ban the sale of cigarettes to new generations

The text is widely criticized in the conservative camp, who see it as an attack on freedoms and a risk of promoting a parallel market.

Will the UK stub out its last cigarettes? British MPs voted on Tuesday April 16 in favor of a bill according to which young people currently under the age of 15 will never be legally sold cigarettes. If the text is finally adopted, they will therefore become the first tobacco-free generation in the country.

During the first vote on this bill in the House of Commons on Tuesday, 383 MPs supported the text, while 67 voted against. Among them are nearly sixty conservative MPs, including Business Minister Kemi Badenoch and several state secretaries.

An “anti-conservative” law

In the fall, the conservative Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, launched, to everyone’s surprise, a very ambitious policy to combat smoking, even if it divided his camp. “It is our responsibility, our duty, to protect the next generation”, justified the Minister of Health, Victoria Atkins, at the opening of the debates in Westminster. According to the government, smoking is the leading cause of preventable death. It is responsible for around 80,000 deaths per year and one in four fatal cancers.

Rishi Sunak was able to count on the votes of the Labor Party to support his text. But the opposition of certain elected representatives of his majority is likely to further weaken his authority and reinforce divisions within his party, already well ahead of Labor in the polls in the run-up to the legislative elections expected this year. Liz Truss, short-lived head of government before Rishi Sunak, described him as“anti-conservative”. “We are a free country. We should not be the ones telling people not to smoke”. Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson also criticized the text, saying it was “just crazy” for Winston Churchill’s party to want to ban “cigars” of which the former conservative leader was an amateur.