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I get it now, anyone who might think a blanket ban might backfire instead of something like more stringent warnings on packaging clearly has to be a child living in the UK because nobody else could possibly care about a growing trend of "think of the children" bans, right?
For reference, I'm not saying that energy drinks shouldn't have more regulation, as in the case of the death of a college student from Panera's Charged Lemonade. I think warnings on any drinks with significant amounts of caffeine or other stimulants would honestly be a good idea. As an adult, I've been jittery and miserable twelve hours later from just one 120mg coffee in a can because I drank it while dehydrated and didn't drink any water after that.
I am ardently against bans like this and want way more radical solutions like banning in advertising (blanket, but I'd settle for "junk foods"), plain packaging and regulations on making products visually appealing, limits on sweetness to hide chemical bitterness outside of pharmaceuticals, nutritional infor clearly communicated more prominently than branding.
Distracting paternalism is useless at best and harmful at worst. These things are brightly coloured, have edgy fonts and names, and are disgustingly sweet because that works. Hit the corporate ghouls in the money where it hurts, don't blame teenagers for wanting to consume the drug that makes managing their life easier when it's packaged so attractively and sold everywhere.
I don't know what the right answer is, or whether or not those proposals would be effective, but I think we can both agree bans like this for cheap political points are actively unproductive to solving the actual problem.