Our statement on the invocation of Article 50

Vapers in Power is a single issue party. Our only concern is to protect the freedom of vapers to buy the products they need, and to use them without undue restriction. Where we can we’ll help out anyone else who’s fighting to restore our diminishing freedoms, but we do not, and will not, take a position on most political issues.

With that said, we welcome the Prime Minister’s invocation of Article 50. Once EU law is no longer supreme we hope the government will swiftly move to repeal the Tobacco and Related Products Act 2016, the British implementation of the EU TPD, and replace it with a new law which is actually fit for purpose.

Despite being called the Tobacco Products Directive, most of the substantive legislation contained in the TPD is directed at electronic cigarettes. Sadly, this legislation is nothing short of atrocious – overbearing, authoritarian, scientifically unjustified and rammed through by inept politicians and vested interests.

A large amount of research was presented to the EU during the TPD process, much of it conducted by eminent British scientists. For reasons of its own the EU chose to ignore this research, and instead to be guided by alarmism, ignorance and falsehoods. For many vapers who followed this law’s progress through the EU’s institutions it was their first experience of how the EU worked, and we know that many of them were persuaded to vote for Brexit as a result.

In future the laws of the United Kingdom should be developed by the Government of the United Kingdom, in the interests of the British people. Today we congratulate the Prime Minister on taking the first step towards this goal, and ask her to make the repeal of the TPD an objective as we move forward.