I joined 10,000 farmers on a march in Westminster – here’s what they had to say

For most people, the prospect of attending a protest on one of the coldest, wettest days of the year would spell doom for any hopes of a large turnout.

But if there’s one group of people you can rely on to trudge through the wind and rain with a solemn sense of duty it’s Britain’s farmers, who turned out en masse today to protest changes to inheritance tax which they say could wipe out their entire industry.

During last month’s Budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced a series of changes which would force family farms worth over £1 million to pay a new 20 per cent levy on their land.

Keir Starmer has repeatedly insisted that the move will only affect a tiny minority of farms- less than 500 in total- but the decision has been widely slammed for using ‘bad data’ which vastly under-represents the amount of farmers who will be at risk of losing their livelihoods.

‘It’s complete rubbish’ says Liz Harrison, a dairy farmer from Yorkshire. ‘We’re going to be heavily impacted by this tax. Rachel Reeves says only 500 people are going to be affected by it, but they have idea about the input value of farming- the machinery, the cost of seed, the fertiliser, chemistry, let alone the soil and the land value.

‘This is a tax which is hitting elderly generations the most, and until October 30th it was absolutely fine for the elder generation to hold land….but she made it virtually impossible overnight for the handing out of family farms.’

She added: ‘We are not political animals at all. We do not want to be stood in London campaigning for our industry.

‘Yet, here we are doing that, and it’s all due to Starmer, Rachel Reeves not listening to farmers.

‘This is not just about APR, it’s about the whole food security on an island nation. They haven’t looked at the data. They didn’t consult. And what they’re doing is really quite dangerous.’

Over 10,000 people gathered outside Westminster today, for a rally which included speakers such as Jeremy Clarkson, Nigel Farage and Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch.

Addressing the crowds, Clarkson slammed Keir Starmer and his ‘infernal’ government, and in a direct appeal to lawmakers, said: ‘I beg of the Government to be big – to accept this was rushed through, it wasn’t thought through and it was a mistake.’

Today’s rally was not a party political protest- many claimed they were usually apolitical, didn’t vote or didn’t lean strongly in favour of any one party.

But if there was one overarching theme of the day’s gathering, it was a deep sense of anger and betrayal at the current Labour government. Signs reading ‘Keir Starmer the Farmer Harmer’ were impossible to avoid, as were repeated attacks on ‘Rachel Thieves’

‘I really had a lot of faith in this government coming in and turning this around, and all we’ve got is bitterness,’ said Andrew Booth, a farmer and former Labour Party member from Dorset. ‘It’s a complete betrayal of our industry and I hope they get a proper smacking for this.’

‘The b******s just don’t really like us do they?’ said Simon Orson, a farmer from Melton Mowbray. ‘We don’t tend to vote Labour so they see us as easy pickings, it’s as easy as that.’

What many seemed keen to impress was the disparity between farmer’s assets and material wealth, which they say Labour had deliberately misinterpreted in order to downplay the level of farm it would inflict on their industry.

‘It’s the old adage- farmers are asset rich but cash poor’ Simon told Metro. ‘The industry is already on its knees. I’ve got a two-year-old son, and the day my father goes I’ll have an £800,000 bill.

‘My farm has never made £80,000 a year, and I’ve got to live as well. At the end of the month, I tend to only take home around £1,800, which is well below the minimum wage. So what’s gonna happen to me? I’m gonna have to sell the land.’

Others had more choice words for Starmer and the top brass. Elizabeth Banwell, from Wrexham, said Labour are ‘taking for granted an entire group of people who do so much, work so many hours, and never complain and never give up. This is an incredibly complicated situation they know nothing about, and they would do well to leave us alone.’

To be a successful farmer requires a monumental amount of stubbornness and determination- skills those in attendance were very keen to impress upon me. Nearly every family in attendance had owned their farm for at least three generations, with some boasting a lineage stretching back hundreds of years.

Meanwhile, farmer Ben Cooper told Metro: ‘The number of farmers that turned out today just shows how much they and we all care about our industry. 

‘Farmers are facing some really tough times with falling output prices and huge increases in input prices even before we start talking about increasing taxes. 

‘We just want a fair price for all the hard work we do. But the government are intent on making family farms unviable for the next generation. Farmers turned out in their masses today to express our concerns directly to the government. 

‘I think the rally today was a great testament to the strength of the farming community.’

He added: ‘It’s been a long day getting up to feed the cattle at 5am and then standing in the rain in London all to show how much we care. But farmers are passionate about farming, they are passionate about the environment and the countryside. It’s our home, we are but custodians of something beautiful that we want to pass to the next generation.’

His words were echoed by Harry, a young farm worker from Birmingham ‘I think this shows how close the farming community is across the UK. The farms are all one massive family, we all help each other out.

‘It doesn’t matter where we are, what we’re doing, what, what we’re growing- we’re all one massive family, and we’ll stand together and fight it out.’

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