The Labour Government has been accused of “clearly hating pubs” by Adam Brooks after pledging a crackdown on drink-driving.

Speaking to GB News, the publican hit out at Chancellor Rachel Reeves for hammering his business with £40,000 in extra costs as a result of her two Budget statements.

In a latest blow to the hospitality industry, Labour ministers have confirmed plans to reduce the drink-drive limit in England and Wales.

The changes have sparked further despair among landlords as the reduction could now limit drinkers to just one alcoholic beverage.

Delivering his verdict on the decision, Mr Brooks told GB News: “They clearly hate us, and they don’t want people congregating in pubs and slagging off the party or possibly the worst Government that we’ve ever had.

“It’s one thing after another. Both Budgets have cost me an extra £40,000 or so in added costs since they’ve come into power.”

Recalling Labour’s pledge to “scrap business rates” in 2022, Mr Brooks said: “I’m doing OK, I’ve got a great pub, but there are many that are not and there are going to be record closures this year.

“In 2022, Labour put all over social media that they’re going to scrap business rates and create a fairer system. Let me just tell you now, the average pub business rates have gone up by 76 per cent, the average hotel 115 per cent. A supermarket though, just four per cent, or a warehouse that someone like Amazon might use, only 16 per cent. So we are disproportionately getting punished.”

Expressing his outrage at the decision to lower the drink-drive limit, Mr Brooks fumed: “You have to look at it like we are being targeted, and now we find out that they’re going to lower the drink drive limit. I do not condone drinking and driving, I’ve been a publican for 20 years.

“I’ve taken keys off of customers to stop them driving, I’m responsible, and that’s the reason I’m a licensee. But on a Friday between 3:00pm and 5:00pm, I get your builders, your workmen that want to pop in and have one pint – that’s not going to create any danger on the road? They want to have a pint before they go home.”

Warning that publicans across the UK are planning protests in Westminster against the Government’s war on pubs, Mr Brooks told GB News: “At the end of the day, we need help. I’m part of a WhatsApp group now, and industrial action and protests are coming to Westminster at the end of this month.

“We want 13 per cent VAT, in line with much of Europe. They support their hospitality and their tourism industry, right? It will keep prices lower. We’re going to try and hit them where it hurts, and that’s at Westminster.”

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Weighing in on the decision, political commentator Christian Calgie argued that although Labour “doesn’t hate pubs”, their policies are “unideological”.

Mr Calgie told GB News: “I don’t doubt for a second that Labour has has snapped in half with the lightest amount of pressure from the usual puritanical lobbyists, and that’s the problem, actually.

“I know it’s been one thing after another and this is just yet another straw that has already broken the camel’s back, but I don’t necessarily think that Labour hate pubs per se, but they are so unideological ,and it takes a certain amount of ideology to stand up to pre-Puritans that are paid so much money to say, if we tweak this, we’ll reduce driving deaths by five a year.”

He added: “And the reason that they can’t stand up to them is because they don’t have any vision or any views.

“The reason this this upsets me so much is I don’t think that this in particular matters nearly as much as the business rates review, or the changes to minimum wage or the workers rights or indeed the energy costs that Ed Miliband is doing nothing about.

“But once a pub closes, 90 per cent of the time it’s gone, and among all the crises, there’s someone who grew up in a rural area, I think back to what actually Jeremy Clarkson said on his latest series of Clarkson’s Farm, about how much these community spaces matter.

“When you’ve got loneliness epidemics, when you’ve got mental health crises, pubs are so important. In fact, I thought much the same when Labour wanted to shut down the Boxing Day Hunt.

“These are other events in rural communities where people get out the house, come together, socialise, have a nice time. You take all of it away, what are you left with?”

Defending the plans, Local Transport Minister Lilian Greenwood told GB News that the move is all about “saving lives” and making better decisions when it comes to drinking and driving.

She told the People’s Channel: “We are out of step in England and Wales. The drink drive limit that we have was set in 1967, it hasn’t changed since then, whilst in in Scotland it was reduced in 2014 to 50mg per 100ml of blood. That’s the level it is everywhere across Europe, I think, with the exception of Malta.

“That’s why we’re proposing to take this action. Nobody wants to stop people from going out to the pub, I enjoy going out to the pub, but what we are saying to people is if you’re going out for a drink, leave the car at home.”