Farmers have told GB News of their “absolute devastation” after the Metropolitan Police “pulled the plug” on their “peaceful protest” during Wednesday’s Budget statement.
Speaking to presenter Martin Daubney, Berkshire Farmers Group organisers George Brown, Dan Willis and Caroline Graham said Dr Alison Heydari, Deputy Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard, withdrew consent for the demonstration with less than 10 hours to go.
Farmers had planned to protest the Family Farm Tax outside Downing Street on Wednesday while Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered her Budget statement.
The Berkshire Farmers Group told GB News following “six weeks” of preparation with the Met, the force “appallingly has withdrawn consent for our peaceful tractor protest to commence” due to pressure from “external stakeholders” regarding risk of “disruption to the life of the community”.
Asked by GB News presenter Martin Daubney why the protest was suddenly cancelled, Mr Willis told GB News: “We don’t know, to be honest with you. We’ve been working in conjunction with the Met since around about six weeks ago, and we’ve had absolutely no issues at all.
“Everything was fine, we talked through a run through yesterday with no problem at all. They flagged up there was some potential issues, and this afternoon, over a zoom call, we learned that we could no longer have a static display of machinery.”
Revealing what they have been offered instead, he added: “Unfortunately, they’ve given us a very, very tiny area, which we could probably just about park two Land Rovers on.
“Which is nowhere near the effect that we were hoping to achieve on the day.”
Farmers have told GB News they are ‘devastated’ after the Met Police revealed they have ‘pulled the plug’ on the Budget protest
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GB NEWS
Highlighting their devastation at the U-turn by police, Mr Brown said: “Yeah Martin, absolutely devastated. We’ve been working on this for months and went on for over a month now.
“We’ve had a great relationship with the Met to be honest, I mean, the liaison officers have been super.”
He stressed: “This decision today, we heard on the news just now about it being about mass disruption on the way in and out of London. The public have been so supportive of us going in out of London every single time, we’ve kept with the flow of the traffic.”
“And I mean, this is 400 tractors, we were talking up to 400 tractors. How many movements are there in London? There’s 16 million movements a year in London. It’s a drop in the ocean.”
Farmers were set to bring their tractors to Whitehall as part of their latest protest against the family farm tax
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PA
Delivering her verdict on the ban, Ms Graham told GB News it will “not stop the people” coming to protest in Westminster on Wednesday.
Ms Graham said: “I feel absolutely devastated, I cannot believe that we cannot protest rightfully.
“And you get all these other radical people protesting and we’re not, we have never caused any problem. What is the problem, to pull the plug now?”
She added: “I can’t stop people, we can’t stop people coming, people will still come down. It is not in our control to be able to stop people. Farmers feel so strongly about their livelihoods, we go to work every day and feed those cattle and animals.”
The farmers told GB News that the decision ‘won’t stop the farmers coming’ to Westminster
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GB NEWS
Announcing the decision on Tuesday afternoon, Scotland Yard said: “We have had a number of conversations with the protest organisers to safely manage the event.
“While people will still be able to demonstrate, conditions have been put in place to prevent protesters from bringing vehicles, including tractors or other agricultural vehicles to the protest.
“This decision was taken due to the serious disruption they may cause to the local area, including businesses, emergency services and Londoners going about their day.
While stressing that the protest had not been banned, the Met added: “Any person taking part in the farmers protest must remain in Richmond Terrace, Whitehall.”