Farmers protest against inheritance tax on farms ‘blocked’ by police

Farmers have been blocked from staging a protest against the government’s ‘tactor tax’, Jeremy Clarkson has claimed.

The former Top Gear presenter was among hundreds planning to rally on November 19 against the Budget change to inheritance tax for farms.

But the National Farmers Union (NFU) said a mass demonstration has been cancelled due to ‘legal issues’.

It added numbers will be capped at 1,800 rather than having protesters ‘simply turn up in numbers in Westminster in the streets or the open spaces’.

The Metropolitan Police insistedthey ‘have not banned anyone from marching on this date’ and that its officers ‘will work with anyone wishing to organise a peaceful protest’.

But Clarkson, 64, who owns Diddly Squat Farm in Chadlington, Oxfordshire, questioned why pro-Palestine and Just Stop Oil demos have had the green light to go ahead in greater numbers.

He told The Sun he had booked a coach down to London intending to stand alongside agricultural workers from the Cotswolds.

Clarkson said: ‘Perhaps, if I had draped my tractor in a Palestinian flag it would be different.

‘It seems that if you are from Just Stop Oil or protesting about Gaza, you can do what you want.

‘But farmers are treated differently by a government that is waging an all out-war on the countryside.

‘We wanted to protest in a dignified and sensible way – which was why I had booked the coach rather than causing disruption with tractors and farming vehicles.’

One of the most controversial measures in the Budget was a change to inheritance tax rules for farms, which will see a tax of 20% raised on agricultural assets above £1 million.

Farming unions and opposition critics have demanded the Government reverse the move, which they argue will hamper food production and harm smaller farms.

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