IF there ever was an example of how Labour has turned its back on the working class, it is its multiple and continuing attacks on people who just want to enjoy a drink and an evening out with friends.
There was a time when the public bar of your local would have been a natural constituency of the Labour Party.
It was a place not only where people enjoyed themselves, but where communities were forged.
The importance of the pub to working communities was recognised by left-wing figures such as George Orwell.
No longer.
Try to get a drink in a suburban neighbourhood or a rural village today and you are more likely to be met with a barred door — and a derelict building that is waiting to be demolished and redeveloped for new homes.
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Yesterday’s proposal to lower the drink-drive limit is just the latest attack on the British boozer.
Pubs are among the biggest losers from Rachel Reeves’ changes to business rates, as reliefs introduced to keep businesses afloat during the pandemic are removed.
Pubs are being taxed as if they are making a fortune, when in reality they are facing rising costs on all fronts — from staffing and food to energy bills.
Throw in a huge extra tax bill and it can turn a marginal business into one which cannot even begin to pay its way.
The owner of one pub in Marlow, Bucks, says his annual business rates will more than double as a result — and he is far from untypical.
Beer duty was increased by 3.66 per cent in the Budget and will soon come into effect.
Then there was the rise in employers’ National Insurance Contributions which has hit the hospitality sector especially hard because it employs a large number of part-time staff.
In her 2024 Budget, Reeves not only increased the rate of NICs by 1.2 per cent, she also decreased the threshold at which they become payable, from £9,100 to £5,000.
It needs to be acknowledged that high taxes are not the only pressure on pubs
Ross
The steep rise in the National Living Wage won’t help, either.
While it might mean a bit of extra money in the pockets of bar staff, it is equally likely to mean that they lose their jobs altogether.
To cap it all off, family-owned pubs will also be affected by the imposition of inheritance tax on business assets.
While a lot of comment on inheritance tax has revolved around farmers, a family-run inn which has passed down the generations is no less affected.
COSSETTED WORLDS
The pain is already being felt by pub landlords.
During 2025, we lost pubs at the rate of one a day.
Over the past 25 years we have lost more than a quarter of the them.
Even if they have managed to survive, many pubs are shadows of their former selves, closing at 9pm or only opening half the week.
No wonder more than a thousand pubs have now joined a campaign to bar Labour MPs from their premises and some are even threatening to stage a national shutdown, as The Sun reveals today.
The attack on small businesses of all kinds is deeply felt.
We have a government which simply does not understand the pressures on businesses, and how a tax hike can turn a profitable venture into something which is doomed.
We are led by ministers who almost exclusively have been nurtured in the cossetted world of the public sector, with its job security and guaranteed, index-linked pensions.
If they listen to businesses at all, it tends to be to the large ones.
As for the small ones, they are there just to be plundered for yet more tax revenues to feed the public sector.
But of course, if businesses are driven to destruction, the Government will end up with zero tax revenue from them.
Worse, the state ends up having to pay unemployment benefits for the employees who are thrown out of work.
The Government is not going to balance the books by taking it out on small business
Ross
The tragedy of a pub closure is that often it takes a community down with it.
In many places, a pub is the only community facility left, after the shops, banks and sometimes the church have been lost, too.
But then the Labour Party seems to have abandoned its sense of community values.
It has evolved into nothing more than an amalgamation of left-wing activists and pressure groups.
Everyone knows that the Government is short of money, thanks to years of poor fiscal management by both the Tories and Labour.
The Chancellor is running an unsustainable deficit of well over £100billion a year.
But the Government is not going to balance the books by taking it out on small business.
It will require deep cuts to public spending on all fronts.
It needs to be acknowledged that high taxes are not the only pressure on pubs.
There are changing public tastes, too, with younger generations drinking less than their parents.
Drink-driving is obviously a serious offence, but reducing the drink-drive limit to a point which could preclude even a single pint goes too far — it is those way over the limit who need to be stopped.
Pubs are about far more than just drinking, and in many cases they have adjusted to demand by serving food, appealing to families and selling low or zero-alcohol beer.
But the Government doesn’t seem to want them to be open to serve anyone.
If you arrive in a town or village to find the last pub shuttered, a large part of the blame deserves to be placed on a desperate Chancellor who has lost touch with the interests of small businesses which are struggling to keep our communities alive.
