Congratulations on the smoking ban, Rishi, but it won’t do you any favours

While the controversial bill will ultimately put the prime minister on the right side of history, in the short term it will cause further divisions in an already fractured party, writes Andrew Grice

Rishi Sunak offered his MPs a free vote in an attempt to dilute the impact of the Tory rebellion, but his ploy didn’t work (PA)

I think Rishi Sunak did the right thing for the country by bringing in a bill to raise the legal age for buying tobacco. After winning a second reading in the Commons last night, it is on course to become law this summer, giving the UK the toughest anti-smoking laws in the world.

The prime minister won’t reap any benefit from his legacy policy, even though future generations will. His Commons victory came at a price: advertising that Conservative MPs are split down the middle on the issue, symbolising a party riven by ideological differences.

In another blow to his battered authority, Sunak had to rely on the votes of opposition MPs – which made him look weak and riled his own side. If his own MPs have stopped listening to him, how can he expect voters to? We live in strange times when the opposition whips its MPs to support government legislation while the governing party is not whipped. Labour rubbed salt in Tory wounds; Wes Streeting hailed the measure as a “Labour bill”.