In a ‘free’ vote, many Tories choose to ignore their leader

By making the vote on his smoking ban for young people a “free” one, with MPs explicitly allowed to break the party line in order to vote with their consciences, Rishi Sunak avoided turning it into a test of his authority.

But seeing 59 of his own MPs – including his Business Secretary, Kemi Badenoch (inset) – oppose his flagship policy in the House of Commons will have hurt nonetheless.

The Prime Minister may have given colleagues the licence to vote against, but he still put a lot of effort into winning over as many of them as possible.

He even roped in the Government’s leading medical officials to make public appeals for the Tobacco and Vapes Bill to pass its second reading.

The size of the rebellion could stoke a larger one when the bill returns to the Commons, as libertarian Tories seek to water down its provisions even if they cannot defeat them outright. But in truth, with Labour’s backing, it remains likely that Mr Sunak’s policy will be on the statute book by the summer.

The effect of the vote, in the end, seems to be twofold. First, it creates yet another political divide in the Conservative Party: Ms Badenoch, along with other high-profile figures such as Liz Truss and Robert Jenrick, can paint themselves as champions of freedom and opponents of the nanny state. (It is intriguing, looking at a future leadership election, that several ministers known to be in Ms Badenoch’s inner circle joined her in the rebellion too.)

The other effect is to highlight the huge philosophical divide that exists among the Tories. For many Conservative MPs, the party is the defender of liberty or it is nothing: knowing that Labour is always likely to push regulation forwards, they see the need to drag that regulatory frontier back.

Others see pragmatism as the essence of Toryism, arguing that the party’s success is built on a willingness to show ideological flexibility in order to solve specific problems and keep the public on side. When the Conservatives are winning, this is hardly a problem. Buoyed by power, the disparate bands within the party are willing to ignore their differences and focus on their tribal loyalty to each other – just look at the way Sir Keir Starmer has papered over the ideological cracks in Labour.

Now that the Tories look to be on the rocks, according to the opinion polls, their bickering is undermining the chances of building a lasting legacy that would survive an election defeat this year.

It does not help that Mr Sunak sometimes seems unsure as to what he stands for himself: is he a revolutionary force, overturning a failed consensus, or the agent of stability?

Either way, too many of his MPs are not listening any more.