Farmers didn’t expect much from Labour’s emergency budget. But we didn’t expect to be entirely ignored.
Not a word about food, farming, or food security in the Spring Statement. That’s not just insulting. It’s dangerous.
The abolition of Agricultural Property Relief on death is no technical tweak. It is a death sentence for many family farms.
For generations, this relief has recognised that land is not just an asset to be traded, it is a workplace, a livelihood, a legacy. By treating it like an investment, Labour is forcing families to sell off parts of their farms just to meet the tax bill rather than invest to secure the nations food security.
And they have not stopped there. There is still talk of removing red diesel relief, a move that would see fuel bills soar by 40 pence a litre overnight. For a government that claims to back British food, they are making it almost impossible to produce it.
Farmers have been taking to Westminster streets to protest Labour rule changes around IHT
REUTERSLabour says it wants growth. But you do not grow the economy by taxing the people who put food on your plate and steward the land beneath your feet.
It is now a year until the family farm tax is implemented. The last chance to reverse it will be the Budget this autumn, but many farmers are already thinking about the worst.
If you are an elderly farmer with a large productive farm, and you followed the previous advice to keep it in your name until death, you might now be considering decisions no one should be forced to make — all because of a tax.
But what should we expect from Labour? They planned to win an election, not how to run the country. Their so-called fully costed manifesto relied on constant economic growth — yet they talked down the economy, increased taxes, and killed any chance of growth.
They attacked pensioners, scrapping the Winter Fuel Payment, leaving over 90,000 more elderly people visiting A and E this winter due to the cold. Yet they are happy to send over £500 million to foreign farmers and pay billions to give away British sovereign territory to a Chinese puppet.
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Farmer James Wright has warned of the 'end of family farms in Britain' following Labour's inheritance tax raidGB News / PAWhen your government is run by human rights lawyers, with a Cabinet where no one has created or sold a business, and a farming minister who has only visited four farms since July. We should not be shocked by anything they do.
Farmers are in the fields today, lambing, calving, planting the crops to make sure there is enough food for tomorrow. But when autumn comes and winter bites, they will return to the streets, and they will not come alone.
Labour’s attack on rural life, from inheritance tax to fuel, from welfare to food policy, will rally everyone who sees their way of life under threat.
If Starmer, Reeves, or Reed think they will get a quiet walk in the countryside or unveil a project in a rural village, they had best think again. A fleet of tractors is always just over the hedge.
