UK PM Rishi Sunak proposes plan to curb smoking in England

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak gave a speech on Wednesday that covered topics ranging from smoking to healthcare and migration at the Conservative Party conference.

In his first — and possibly last — speech as leader to the party’s annual conference before an election due in 2024, Sunak said he's not afraid to make tough choices and big decisions that will deliver “long-term success” rather than “short-term advantage.”

But one of his big decisions has divided the party and threatens to derail his agenda: scrapping much of an ambitious but overbudget high-speed railway line that was planned to link London and Manchester.

Sunak said he was cancelling the rest of the embattled HS2 project because its costs have doubled and “the facts have changed.”

Like many Conservatives, he invoked the spirit of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, whose free-market policies transformed Britain in the 1980s, at a high cost to working-class communities.

Sunak suggested he was Thatcher's political heir — and not the five other Conservative prime ministers since.

"We must end the national scandal where our benefit system declares that more than 2 million people of working age are incapable of actually doing any. That's not conservative. That's not compassionate. That must change," he said.

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On migration, the UK Prime Minister insisted that "it is non-negotiable that you, the British people decide who comes here and not criminal gangs," adding that boat crossings are down by 20%.