Nigel Farage warns of ‘black market for tobacco’ in UK after Starmer smoking ban

Nigel Farage says the government’s planned ban on smoking in beer gardens will spell the end of Britain’s binge drinking.

In an interview with GB News, Farage told Bev Turner and Andrew Pierce that there is a risk that people will also start buying tobacco on the black market.

Mr Farage said GB News: “I’m a pub-goer, and it’s interesting that our politicians are a strange bunch. You know, they’re not very sociable, and I suspect very few people in the House of Commons go to pubs. I like pubs because everyone is a parliament. You know, we discuss local issues, national issues, international issues. They’re really important places.

“And when smoking was banned indoors, pubs and clubs took a 20% financial hit. It’s one of the reasons why 7,000 pubs have closed in the last 20 years. If you ban people from smoking in gardens and you ban people from smoking outside pubs, that’s the end of the British pub. It’s going to disappear. No more drunks. There will be restaurants masquerading as pubs, but there won’t be any pubs, and that’s because, you know, quite a large proportion of pub goers also smoke the occasional cigarette.

“So I think it’s a huge government overreach. I think it’s an overreach that just goes a step too far, because if you’re outside, there’s no reason why your smoke should affect anyone else.

“But I also think there is a danger here, and the danger is this, that if you convert through regulation and taxation the price of a legal activity into an effectively illegal activity, you are giving it straight to the criminal gangs. And this has happened in Australia. A packet of cigarettes in Australia is now £35. So what has happened? What has happened is that the black market in tobacco is now huge. No self-respecting criminal dealer touches cocaine any more. There is no money in cocaine. No, it’s cigarettes. It’s tobacco.”

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