Across Britain, the story is becoming all too familiar. High streets that were once thriving, safe places for communities to gather, shop and socialise are increasingly marked by decline and criminality. Not just petty crime, but something more organised, more entrenched. Alongside the few remaining legitimate shops, some charity shops, and plenty boarded-up premises, is a different kind of business. Often neon-lit, cash-heavy, and seemingly immune to the pressures facing everyone else. Many raise serious questions about their links to wider criminal networks.

At the heart of this growing problem — fuelling and funding it — is the rapid rise of the illegal tobacco trade. This is no longer a marginal issue confined to the shadows. It is deeply embedded in communities across the country, undercutting honest retailers already struggling with rising costs, heavy taxation and relentless economic pressure. And perhaps worse still, it is helping to fund a wider web of serious crime.

A recent poll of 15,000 Brits highlights the scale of the issue. Around 80% believe politicians are not doing enough to tackle illegal tobacco, while nearly half (48%) say rising prices would push smokers towards the black market.

This is not a minor concern. It is a growing national crisis.

The National Crime Agency’s Operation Machinize has already exposed the links between illegal tobacco and organised immigration crime, modern slavery, human trafficking and even firearms offences. Its crackdown on barbershops and other cash-intensive “front” businesses revealed just how deeply embedded these criminal networks have become on our high streets.

The same polling, found that a third of people have already been offered illicit tobacco. And the situation looks set to worsen. Among smokers surveyed, 57% said Labour’s planned tax changes would make them more likely to seek out cheaper, potentially illegal, alternatives.

Yet despite these warnings, the Government is pressing ahead.

Buried in recent legislation is an unprecedented double tobacco tax increase. The standard annual duty rise, will be followed by an additional hike later this year to offset the introduction of a new vape tax. It means that, from October, the price of a 30g pack of tobacco with jump by £2.50 overnight.

At a time when households are already under intense financial pressure, the consequences are entirely predictable.

These measures are unlikely to raise the revenue ministers expect. The Treasury already says they lose an estimated £2 billion a year to the illicit tobacco market. When legal products become unaffordable, demand does not disappear, it is diverted.

And increasingly, it is being diverted straight into the hands of criminal gangs.

Smoking rates are, thankfully, already falling, driven in part by the shift towards alternatives such as vaping and nicotine pouches. But when policy pushes prices too far, too fast, it risks backfiring. That point came long ago.

Labour must change course, for the sake of our high streets, our communities, and the hardworking, taxpaying retailers trying to survive.

But above all, for public safety.

Because illegal tobacco is not an isolated problem. It is part of a much darker criminal ecosystem. And when illicit trade becomes normalised, it brings with it fraud, exploitation and organised crime that reaches far beyond the shop counter.

Andrew Rosindell is the Reform UK MP for Romford