Guido’s Editorial Director Adam Cherry asked Nigel Farage what his position was on the Sugar Tax now that Reeves is planning to extend the levy to milkshakes. Farage blasted sin taxes:
“I mean, you know, it’s as if we we’re all to be protected from ourselves and kept at home wrapped up in cotton. Well, just take tobacco. The Australians have gone bonkers. A packet of cigarettes in Australia costs about 35 quid, maybe nearly 40 quid. So if you’re living in Melbourne and you’re in a criminal gang, forget cocaine. Forget there’s no money in cocaine. The money’s in fags… And you can go back to Adam Smith if you like who talked about brandy taxes. And if brandy tax is too high, guess what happens? You get smuggling.”
Farage added on sugar specifically: “I just think we’re not doing enough through education and just banning things and taxing things and saying in that particularly famous chain that you can’t fill up for a second time. It’s just overreach on the most astonishing level.” No commitment to repeal the sugar levy there…
