Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick has accused Labour of declaring “war on rural communities” over controversial inheritance tax changes affecting farmers.
Speaking to GB News, Jenrick called the tax “iniquitous” and warned it would prevent family farmers from passing their land to future generations.
The Conservative MP’s comments come as hundreds of farmers prepare to stage tractor protests in the capital today.
Speaking to GB News, Robert Jenrick said: “The Government have declared war on rural communities right across our country.
Robert Jenrick fumes that the rise is a “iniquitous tax”
GB News
“This is an iniquitous tax. This is preventing family farmers from handing on their farm, as they always planned, to their children and their grandchildren.
“It’s going to cause havoc across the countryside. We, the Conservative Party, have been opposing it tooth and nail and we’re going to keep pressing the case in Parliament, urging the government that it is not too late for them to change course.”
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Jenrick added: “The Labour Party could have taken action against wealthy city financiers buying large farms purely to reduce their inheritance tax bill.
“But they’ve done something quite different to that. They set the threshold at a low level, so that this will affect small family farms, the types of farmers up and down our country who have a couple of hundred acres who are getting up first thing in the morning, working hard, trying to protect our countryside and our food security.
“They are the lifeblood of our rural communities, and I think these people deserve our respect, and they deserve the right to be able to hand their farm on to their children and their grandchildren. The Labour Party do not appreciate rural life.
“In fact, this is a whole pattern of measures that the Labour Party have brought in, in their short term in government, everything from attacking the farmers to changing how buses work in rural communities, hiking the fares from £2 to £3, you name it, they are hurting rural communities and we are going to stand up for them and ensure that we’re holding Labour to account in Government.”
Hundreds of tractors are set to converge in Westminster today, with parallel protests planned in Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast.
The vehicles will line up on Whitehall from 10am, followed by speeches at noon and a slow drive around central London from 12.45pm.
Tractors are travelling from across the country, including Exmoor, Shropshire, Somerset, Kent and the home counties for the “RIP British Farming” protest.
Organisers have specified this is a “tractor-only protest,” with other vehicles such as pick-up trucks asked not to join.
Robert Jenrick discussed today’s farmer protests
GB News
Ministers have insisted only around 500 of the wealthiest estates will be affected, but the National Farmers Union claims 75 per cent of farms will exceed the £1million threshold.
A recent Survation poll showed 58 per cent of people in England’s rural constituencies oppose the inheritance tax changes.
Jeff Gibson, founder of Kent Fairness For Farmers, shared the stark challenges facing the next generation of farmers.
“In most cases, we are happy and immensely proud to provide food without any real financial gain, in the hope we can pass our farms, which we’ve worked so hard to protect and care for, to the next generation,” he said.