No Beer for You: How British Pubs Fought a Tax Increase

More than 1,400 pubs declared a ban on Labour lawmakers in response to a plan to raise business rates significantly. The move got attention, and results.

With its wooden beams, thatched roof and open log fire, the 17th-century Old Thatch pub offers a warm welcome to customers in southern England.

But one influential group of Britons can expect a frosty reception: lawmakers from the governing Labour Party.

The Old Thatch is one of more than 1,400 pubs and restaurants to have banned all Labour legislators in a protest over a planned increase in a property tax, which landlords say will cost them thousands of pounds a year. Announced just before Christmas, when many Britons gather in pubs to celebrate the holiday, the pub ban gained widespread attention.

And it appears to have worked. The government is expected to announce concessions within days, the latest in a series of policy flip-flops that critics have seized on as evidence of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s weakness.

“We have them on the run,” said Andy Lennox, landlord of the pub in Wimborne near Bournemouth, where the rebellion began. He wants to see the detail of the policy reversal before calling off the ban: “If you don’t have the stick, you don’t get the carrot.”

Few parts of British life generate as much affection as pubs, and angering landlords has produced an especially swift backlash from a hospitality sector already buffeted by Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic, inflation and higher energy prices.

The trigger for the landlords’ protest was a change in business rates — an annual tax on commercial property — that was announced in November alongside the budget. The government is also ending some temporary concessions granted to pubs and restaurants during the pandemic that have been winding down.

According to UKHospitality, a trade body representing the sector, pubs on average can expect business rates to increase 15 percent this year — equivalent to an extra £1,400, or about $1,880 per pub, even after transitional help. In the 2027 to 2028 financial year, average rates will be £4,500 more than today and £7,000 higher the following year, the organization said.

James Kennell, an associate professor at Surrey University who studies the hospitality industry, said that Brexit had made it harder for pubs to recruit freely from continental Europe, and the sector was then hit hard by lockdowns during the pandemic. Pubs are also particularly exposed to increases in the minimum wage and rises in payroll tax — two other policies that Labour has introduced in the past year.

“The government wants to talk about big-ticket investments, where a minister can go and put a hard hat on and stand in front of a factory,” said Dr. Kennell. In contrast, he said, pubs and restaurants are often overlooked, despite their central role in Britain’s social fabric and as employers. “If you look at Italy, France, Spain, hospitality careers are seen as being prestigious,” he added.

When the government announced its plans in 2025, the Treasury said that, thanks to its interventions, “the sector’s total bill will only increase by 4 percent next year.”

Last week the chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, promised more help for “our pubs and the hospitality sector.” Speaking in Davos earlier this week, she added, “The situation the pubs face is different from other parts of the hospitality sector, but we will be setting out the detail in the next few days.”

Over a beer at the Old Thatch, Mr. Lennox said that the protest would most likely continue if the concessions promised by Mr. Starmer applied just to pubs but not to restaurants — as Ms. Reeves hinted she was considering.

Mr. Lennox, who runs a total of eight pubs and restaurants, wants the government to cut VAT, a sales tax, from the standard rate of 20 percent to 13 percent for hospitality businesses.

He described how the campaign began after James Fowler, a friend who runs a nearby restaurant called The Larder House, put a sign in his window banning Labour lawmakers.

Some critics question the practicality of the ban. There are 404 Labour members of Parliament, and very few landlords will recognize more than a handful. Others have spoken out against the idea of excluding an entire group of people from places they may want to go with families or friends, or where they would interact with people in the community whom they are meant to represent.

In a video filmed outside the Larder House, Tom Hayes, the member of Parliament representing the local area of Bournemouth East, made an impassioned argument against the exclusion.

“It’s the Christmas season, it’s meant to be the joyful season. But The Larder House and other businesses with a ‘No Labour MPs’ sticker in the window, they are undermining the inclusive culture that business owners locally have helped to nourish,” he said. “My job has just got a million times harder because I can’t go and bang the drum for business with the chancellor if I can’t speak with business leaders.”

Mr. Hayes did not respond to requests for comment. Months before the ban, he had praised Mr. Fowler and several other hospitality business owners during a parliamentary debate on supporting the hospitality sector.

“As entrepreneurs, they are investing time, money and personal risk to create jobs and community hubs,” Mr. Hayes said. “They shoulder costs and were often overlooked in policy discussions over the past 14 years.”

Inside the Old Thatch, there was support for the ban from customers. “Yes, hit them where it hurts — they can’t have a pint,” said Karen Rawlings, 61, who runs a nearby pet care business. “It’s a shame they have to go that far as they are turning away business away, but if it makes a point, fair play.”

In London, the issue is so sensitive at the Pineapple pub, which Mr. Starmer frequented before he became prime minister, that staff declined to discuss it.

At the nearby Bull & Gate, Frances Marfleet, 35, who works in health care, said that pubs play an important role in communities. “It’s a big part of our culture in this country,” she said. “If the pub around the corner from your house, that has provided you with joy every weekend for 20 years, suddenly closes, that is really impactful — negatively — on your life, that’s sad.”

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