Who were the prominent Tory MPs who opposed Sunak’s smoking ban?
Rishi Sunak has suffered another blow to his authority as almost half of his own MPs refused to vote for his plan to make it illegal for anyone born in 2009 or later to buy tobacco products in Britain.
A total of 57 Tories walked through the No lobby on Tuesday evening, while 106 abstained or were absent – meaning that of the 347 sitting Conservatives, only 178 (51%) supported the bill.
Those opposed included several MPs said to have leadership ambitions: Kemi Badenoch, the business secretary; Suella Braverman, the former Secretary of the Interior; and Robert Jenrick, the former Home Secretary.
Former Prime Minister Liz Truss also voted against the legislation, along with several serving ministers: Alex Burghart, the Cabinet Office minister; Steve Baker, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland; Julia Lopez, the Minister of Culture; Lee Rowley, the Minister for Communities; and Andrew Griffith, the Science Minister.
They were joined by former Conservative deputy party leader Lee Anderson, as well as George Galloway and seven DUP MPs.
Kemi Badenoch
The business secretary was the only minister to vote against the proposed smoking ban. Just before the vote, she told ”, and also cited the difficulties she thought companies would face in enforcing a ban.
Badenoch later played down suggestions that her decision showed she was setting herself up for a future Tory leadership bid. She told LBC it was a “shame” that people would view it that way.
Suella Braverman
The former Minister of the Interior and controversy seem to go hand in hand. She rushed back from a controversial right-wing conference in Brussels, after a local mayor ordered police to close it, to vote against the bill.
Braverman, who was sacked by Sunak as home secretary in November, recently ruled himself out of a Tory leadership bid but has fired a series of political grenades at the prime minister in recent weeks.
Liz Truss
Opposition to the plans was led by the former prime minister, who gave a speech in the House of Commons in which he hit out at ‘virtue signaling’ and ‘wagging, baby-sitting control freaks’.
Truss recently weighed in while promoting her new book. Her closest allies also voted with her, including her former party chairman, Jake Berry, former ministers Simon Clarke, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Alec Shelbrooke, as well as Craig Whittaker, who was her deputy chief whip during her short stay in Downing Street.
Robert Jenrick
The former immigration minister, who is believed to have leadership ambitions and has become increasingly popular among hardliners, joined Badenoch in taking to social media to express his opposition to the plan.
He wrote about X: “I believe in personal freedom. Let’s educate more and ban less. I also believe in the principle of equality before the law.”
In January, Jenrick, who resigned from Sunak’s government over the prime minister’s “weak” Rwanda deportation bill, refused to rule out a bid for the leadership of the Tory party.