OVER centuries, pubs have been the beating heart of British communities.
For some, it is a place to catch up with friends, meet strangers or simply unwind with a well-deserved drink at the end of a long day.
For others, it is the essential debating chamber, where we gather to discuss life’s most pressing matters, such as who the next England football manager should be, or the uselessness of our local councillor.
As I have always said, every pub is a Parliament — where conversation flows freely and the worries of the world are left outside the door.
Sadly, our affection for these cherished institutions isn’t shared by either the ­Conservatives or Labour.
As The Jattvibe’s long-running Save Our Sups campaign has consistently highlighted, our pubs are in peril thanks to reckless policies pursued by successive governments over the years.
According to recent data, the number of pubs has fallen from around 69,000 in the 1980s to around 45,000 at the end of 2024.
Meanwhile, thousands more are facing last orders.
One alarming report suggested there could be as few as 10,000 pubs in Britain by the 2040s.
Since Britain’s brewing and pub sectors support more than a million jobs, their loss will be felt economically as much as culturally.Given how long the Treasury has treated them like cash cows, it’s no ­wonder so many no longer feel able to keep the lights on or the log fires burning.
The Tories whacked pubs with increased business rates and sky-high energy costs in their mad pursuit of Net Zero.
Then Labour came to power and ­immediately issued treble-whammy hikes in employers’ National Insurance, alcohol duty and the minimum wage.
Rachel Reeves temporarily froze the enormous business rate rises she imposed at the last Budget, but once that comes to an end, the average pub faces paying an extra £12,900 over three years.
As long as these crippling measures remain in place, business for most landlords will be, quite simply, unsustainable.
Which is why Reform UK has launched an extensive package to help save the great British boozer.
Under our five-point plan, we’ll get the tankards clinking and the beer taps ­flowing again.
Firstly, we will halve VAT on hospitality to ten per cent, which will level the ­playing field between pubs and the ­supermarkets.
Secondly, we will scrap Rachel Reeves’ National Insurance hike — effectively a “tax on work” — which has imposed an additional £1billion of wage costs on ­hospitality.
The astronomical rate of beer duty, ­currently nearly 50p in the pint, is one of the highest in Europe.
Oh, and in case you’re interested, we have Jeremy Hunt to thank for that, under whose Chancellorship alcohol duties soared.
Well, under our plans, it will be slashed by ten per cent, saving as much as a pound on a pint.
As for those destructive business rates, Reform UK will progressively abolish them for all pubs over the course of four years.
That’s right, abolish them completely — no half measures here!
Lastly, we will change ridiculous regulations that trap landlords in restrictive and inflexible contracts, limiting where they can source alcoholic drinks, giving more support to local ownership models.
And before you ask, all of this is already fully costed, which means no reckless ­borrowing to pay for it all.
Instead, we will fund these measures by reinstating the two-child limit on Universal Credit for everyone bar British families where both parents are in work.
By our estimates, this will save £3billion per year by the end of the decade, ­comfortably offsetting the total cost of the pub tax cuts.
That’s a much-needed reform of our ­ballooning benefits system, which will help preserve and nurture thousands of vital jobs within our hospitality sector.
Publicans desperately need our help. And we are going to give it to them.
Because when pubs close, they stay closed.
If we keep going as we are under the current Government, our historic ale houses risk becoming like red telephone boxes or abandoned shepherd’s huts.
Obscure relics, in other words, of a bygone era.
And as that fine poet Philip Larkin once noted: “That will be England gone . . .”