Furious farmers are planning to ‘ramp up the pressure’ on Keir Starmer with another larger and more targeted protest on December 11, warning ‘nothing is off limits.’
This comes after 20,000 farmers gridlocked central London on November 19 to protest Chancellor Reeves’ inheritance tax hike.
The government doubled down on its raid however, arguing that slapping 20 per cent death duties on farmers’ assets over £1million was a ‘fair and balanced’ approach to fill the £22billion black hole.
Defra Secretary Steve Reed refused to apologise to farmers, even elderly ones who are now terrified of dying in the next seven years and saddling their children with farm-threatening tax bills.
Liz Webster, founder of the Save British Farming campaign group, is one of the leading members of the next protest on December 11.
She said: “Farmers are uniting en masse across all four nations. And we are going to show our teeth.
“We’re all f***ing furious, basically. What I’m seeing from farmers is a building fury and pushback because he [Starmer] has no mandate to do this.
“And it’s been done in a very underhand and deceitful way, relying on erroneous data. And unleashing a culture war on us, falsely flagging us as tax avoiders, which is not true.
“He’s trying to win support for the end of British farming with deceit and lies. And he’s failed.
“He’ll continue to fail because polling shows that the majority [of the public] back farmers and feel that we’re getting a raw deal.”
Save British Farming campaign banner
Liz Webster
Yesterday, an Ipsos poll found 55 per cent of the British public would support a farmers’ strike, roughly the same proportion who support nurse or ambulance staff strikes.
Asked about the December 11 protest, Ms Webster said: “We will be descending on Whitehall.
“We’ve got various mustering points on either side of London. I think you’ll start to see tractors arriving there from 11ish.
“We’ll be starting off with some speeches and then a journey around London. It will just be farmers, no politicians.
“We’ll recognise the potential death of British farming and then we’ll get on our tractors and cause chaos.
“It’s not the same route as we did last time, but a longer route. And we’re going to have more tractors.
“You can expect chaos on that day.”
Liz Webster on the farm
Liz Webster
Asked to elaborate on potential further action, Ms Webster said: “Nothing’s off limits. We’re not ruling anything out.
“But we’re not stupid. We don’t need to create a mess and destroy things.
“We can get attention just by engaging with the public and getting them to enjoy the spectacle of tractors. We don’t need to do what the French do, but we can drive tractors around.
“I’m sure that other groups might want to do more. But from my perspective, I’m not a lawbreaker.
“I don’t believe that you win hearts and minds by being too militant. The public are backing us in terms of a food strike, and I’m not ruling that out.
“We would do that just to prove the point, because we think this government is being wholly irresponsible and negligent to mess about with our food security like this.
“We’re not ruling it out at the moment, but we’re going to continue to ramp up the pressure.”
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Responding, a Defra spokesperson said: “Our commitment to farmers remains steadfast – we have committed £5 billion to the farming budget over two years, including more money than ever for sustainable food production, and we are developing a 25-year farming roadmap, focusing on how to make the sector more profitable in the decades to come.
“Our reform to Agricultural and Business Property Relief will impact around 500 estates a year.
“For these estates, inheritance tax will be at half the rate paid by others, with 10 years to pay the liability back interest free. This is a fair and balanced approach which fixes the public services we all rely on.”
Defra also highlighted the NFU not supporting farmers’ blocking supplies going to supermarkets.
They also said the UK has a high degree of food security through strong domestic production and imports through stable trade routes.
Similarly, they said Britain’s food supply chain is resilient and will be made more so by investing £5 billion into the farming sector over the next two years.
Tomorrow the Conservatives will force a vote on changes to farmers’ inheritance tax, forcing Labour MPs in rural constituencies to publicly support the measure and enrage constituents.
The alternative is to defy the government and risk having the Labour whip withdrawn, something Starmer has shown he is not afraid to do.
Ms Webster has asked farmers hoping to attend to contact Save British Farming at savebritishfarming@gmail.com.
