'Entry Denied!': Labour's Clash with Pubs Promises a Upcoming Year Challenge.

Labour MPs returning to their local areas this weekend might feel a sense of respite as a chaotic parliamentary session concludes. However, for those hoping to visit their community tavern for a relaxing pint, goodwill could be scarce. In fact, some may realize they are not allowed through the door.

Over the past few weeks, businesses across the country have been displaying signs that declare "Labour MPs Not Welcome" in protest to revisions in commercial property taxes unveiled by the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, in her latest financial statement.

This movement means one fewer retreat for many government backbenchers seeking solace from the difficult situation of their public disapproval. MPs now report frequent hostility in public spaces after a rocky first year and a half that has seen the government's support plummet from around 34% to roughly under a fifth.

"It can be hard being the MP of the area you have forever lived in," said one. "Our neighborhood bar is where we went with the kids and just be a ordinary family. But the past occasions we've just ended up being confronted by other drinkers. Now I'm not even sure we'll be able to get in."

This feeling of frustration is visible in a social media post by Tom Hayes, the Member of Parliament for Bournemouth East, lamenting being refused entry to one of his local pubs, the Larderhouse.

"It's the Christmas season," he said. "However the Larderhouse and other establishments with a 'No Labour MPs' sign in the window, they are eroding the community spirit that local entrepreneurs have helped to cultivate." He went on, "Politics must be kept politics off the high street completely, but especially at Christmas."

'Pubs Have a Special Place in the National Identity

After a challenging period marked by high costs, the pandemic, and changing habits, landlords were anticipating the chancellor's statement might bring some support—namely through a much-anticipated revamp of the commercial tax system.

However the chancellor dashed those hopes, keeping the system unreformed and choosing instead to lower the multiplier and allocate £4.3bn over three years in financial support for the retail and hospitality sectors.

While seemingly a positive step, the impact of that support package has been dwarfed by the effect of a three-yearly property revaluation, which has caused the valuation of pubs and restaurants to spike from their Covid-affected lows.

Beginning in next April, business taxes are set to increase by 115% for the typical hotel and over three-quarters for a public house, versus just 4% for large supermarkets and seven percent for logistics centres. A major hospitality group, which owns pubs, restaurants and the Premier Inn hotel chain, says it will face an extra tax bill of between £40m and £50m as a result.

Joe Butler, the publican at the Tollemache Arms in Northamptonshire, said: "Literally overnight, the worth of our business has increased twofold. That's going to be a significant burden for us."

This financial strain on publicans is directly felt in the price of a customer's pint.

"The cost of a drink is now too high. When we first started here 10 years ago, we charged £3.40 a pint. We're now approaching £7 a pint," Butler stated.

Simultaneously, pandemic-related tax breaks are being phased out, while sector businesses are still coping with rises in national insurance and the minimum wage from the previous budget.

"If you wanted to write the least helpful financial plan for pubs and consumers, you wouldn't have got far away from what came out," stated Ash Corbett-Collins, the chairperson of Camra, the campaign for real ale.

Several within the Labour party believe this is a confrontation they should not have picked, not least because of the important role the neighborhood inn holds in society.

Richard Quigley, the Labour MP for the Isle of Wight West, who also operates a chip shop on the island, said: "We pledged for two years to pubs and hospitality businesses that we are going to provide support but then they get slapped with this new assessment. We must not see taxes being reduced for large multinational companies but up for small restaurants and pubs."

Some note that Keir Starmer himself has historically been a regular at his local, the Pineapple in north London, and often references their significance to local communities. "There is little we prefer than going to the local for a pint, myself included," the prime minister said in February.

Yet strategists liken antagonising publicans to taking on NHS workers in terms of political risk.

Joe Twyman, co-founder of the public opinion consultancy Deltapoll, said: "From the Queen Vic to the Rovers Return, pubs have a cherished status in the national consciousness.

"For many people the local pub is regarded as an key pillar of the locality, even if a good proportion of those same people will rarely actually drink there.

"The political risk with antagonising pubs is that your critics will quickly accuse you of assaulting the core of this country and its traditions, particularly in rural areas. And they will be able to produce many powerful examples to prove their point."

'Nothing Personal'

One such example is Andy Lennox, the landlord at the Old Thatch pub in Wimborne, Dorset, and the coordinator of the "No Labour MPs" initiative. Lennox says he has distributed stickers to nearly 1,000 establishments and is dispatching 100 more every day.

His campaign has gained the endorsement of several well-known figures, including television presenter Jeremy Clarkson, who runs a pub called the Farmer's Dog, and pop star Rick Astley, who has a stake in a brewpub in north London—though the latter has indicated he will not actually ban Labour MPs.

"We have pleaded for help for a considerable period," explained Lennox, who is demanding a temporary VAT reduction. "Ministers is presenting this as a helpful policy but that's not what people are seeing, and that is the thing that has aggrieved so many people."

A number within the hospitality trade think a campaign banning individual politicians is could be counterproductive. "I'm not sure it's a effective strategy to ban the exact people we should be trying to engage with and influence," said Corbett-Collins.

When pressed this week, the Treasury spoke of the support being made available to the sector. "We are supporting the hospitality industry with the budget's £4.3bn investment. This comes on top of our initiatives to ease licensing, maintaining our reduction to alcohol duty on beer from the tap, and limiting corporation tax," a representative commented.

The business owners, nevertheless, are in not the frame of mind to compromise, even if alienating MPs