Warning: Banning smoking can endanger your political health

In arguments about the merits of restricting smoking, libertarians lose hands down. The "nanny state" has the weight of science, common sense, and, nowadays, public opinion behind it. Compulsory seat belts in cars and helmets for motorcyclists were also opposed by a noisy libertarian minority, but who now argues that the clock should be turned back?

The facts are against Big Tobacco. In the UK, an estimated 76,000 deaths a year are caused by smoking. As early as 1950 an Oxford epidemiologist, Richard Doll, established the link between smoking and cancer (the good doctor immediately quit the habit) and, despite the well-funded efforts of tobacco companies to conceal the truth, no one with a shred of scientific credibility has ever contested his findings.  

Two out of three people who don't manage to give up smoking die prematurely. Smoking is responsible for nine out of 10 cases of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The annual bill to an already stretched National Health Service is counted in billions.

So, why did so many Tory MPs this week abstain or vote against Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's bill to ban smoking over a period of years? What's more, they rebelled in the full knowledge that nearly three-quarters of Conservative voters support the prime minister's plan. A minority they may be, but their reservations at least deserve a hearing. 

Of course, many of the naysayers, with an eye to the leadership contest that will take place after  Sunak's likely defeat in the next general election, had self-interested motives for defying the boss. The PM's predecessor, Liz Truss, is a conviction libertarian and her parliamentary faction's votes will matter. 

Libertarianism in practice, however, would be more illiberal than Truss may appreciate. In her "night-watchman" state, a truly free market health system would demand prohibitively expensive insurance premiums from smokers. 

Freed from the shackles of government interference, employers would also drug test their employees for nicotine and sack smokers as more likely to take time off for sickness — this isn't a fanciful notion: When I worked in the US years ago companies had to be barred by law from enforcing such employment contracts.

Other Tories are less ideological in their opposition to a smoking ban. A large section of the party simply scorns do-gooders who would deny the people their pleasures — call it the Boris Johnson tendency. 

For much of its history, the Conservatives have been the party of brewers and bookies too. "Everyone knows the risks of smoking by now, so let the buyer beware," goes the argument. Physical addiction, however, negates freedom of choice and the poor are the most likely victims. 

Three other Tory objections to a smoking ban point to more troubling developments in British politics. At last year's party conference in Manchester, Sunak promised that "a 14-year-old today will never legally be sold a cigarette and that they – and their generation – can grow up smoke free." The second reading of the government's Tobacco and Vapes Bill, which would raise the legal age of smoking — currently 18 — by one year every year from 2027 has set alarm bells ringing on all three counts.

First, the Tories have watched with growing unease as identity politics or group rights have been promoted by governments of both major parties at the expense of the principle of equality before the law.  Drawing legal distinctions by race, class, sexuality, gender, religion and now age, they fear, will presage an age of "communalism," to the detriment of a national community. 

Kemi Badenoch, the trade secretary and the current darling of Tory activists, for instance, has philosophical objections to the smoking ban. She questions whether it's right to create two groups of consumers — say, a 41-year-old who can legally buy a pack of twenty and a 40-year-old who can't — with different rights. Malaysia scrapped a similar proposed law recently as unequal and therefore unconstitutional.

Second, Tory MPs have become wary of badly drafted or ill-defined virtue-signaling laws. In the UK, these are called "Dangerous Dogs Acts" after an unworkable bill that was passed during one moral panic. As a practical objection to the smoking ban, what happens if an older person buys tobacco for a younger, for instance? 

Governments have acquired the habit of passing laws that set ambitious goals for a better future without offering guidance about how these targets will ever be achieved. Prime ministers are apt to call this their "legacy," leaving it to the voters to pick up the tab. Opinion polls suggest that a smoke-free world would be "nice," but people have legitimate questions about the practicality of a ban.

Thirdly, the two state-imposed lockdowns during the pandemic suggest that nanny may have outreached herself — the damage done to the British economy and society is still with us. Official figures this week reveal that UK labor participation rates have never recovered, mental-health problems among the young have soared and absenteeism from school is rife. Lockdown, too, was popular with the voters, but the evidence increasingly suggests that its second iteration knocked the stuffing out of the country.

The UK has no precedent to guide it as Sunak's bill wends its way through parliament. Although he copied a recent anti-smoking law in New Zealand, a new centre-right government repealed it before the results could bear fruit.  No one really knows whether a ban will lead to an explosion in the already burgeoning black market in cigarettes. 

These arguments can't be resolved in the abstract. A government genuinely open to the evidence might insert sunset clauses into its bill, forcing its successors to renew or give up on the smoking ban depending on the success of its implementation. As John Stuart Mill's On Liberty argued 160 years ago, a majority should be careful not to impinge upon the freedoms of a minority without good cause.

Sketch: TBS

Martin Ivens is the editor of the Times Literary Supplement.  

Disclaimer: This opinion first appeared on Bloomberg, and is published by special syndication arrangement