The Prime Minster’s election manifesto could not have been clearer “Labour recognises that food security is national security”. We can take to the bank then that farmers and farming is safe and set for a boost of money and confidence.
But instead, Labour have ploughed billions into the energy sector whilst the Chancellor has done her level best to pull the rug out from under the feet of our struggling farmers. Yet again, we are faced with a government that says one thing to get elected and another once in power. Time and time again this happens as if the British electorate are all idiots - which we obviously are as we keep falling for it.
Farmers will now be presented with a tax bill for 20% of their farms estate value, above £1 million, upon the death of the owner and, in many cases, that will result in the family having to sell up. Farmers might be asset-rich but are normally cash-poor and have suffered years of farming policy that changes with every successive government, and never for the better.
Figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) show that in 2022/23, 19% of mixed farms made a loss, and 23% made a profit of less than £25,000. A mental health charity working with farmers says that is has received a 150% increase in calls this year - and that was before the Budget.
The nightmare facing a typical 500-acre mixed-use farm in southern England that includes farmhouse, barns, livestock and machinery, such a farm might be worth £5 million, £4million of which will now incur an Inheritance Tax bill of £800,000!
Most farmers do not have this money available without selling the farm and the inheritor is unlikely to have it either. When the farm goes, so to do the jobs of hundreds of businesses that rely on it for their business.
Make no mistake, this vicious and spiteful tax raid will destroy communities – the very communities this country replies on to feed the nation.
Starmer trumpeted at the National Farmers Union conference last year “We can’t have our farmers struggling.” You might imagine the level of anger in the community and the reason why so many are thinking of a French-style protest with hundreds of tractors arriving in Downing Street.
Many of the farms that will be sold off will end up in the hands of foreign investors with zero intention of farming and in many cases, not even paying tax here.
Ministers claim that 73% of farmers will not be affected but fail to explain how they come up with this number. Minette Batters, former President of the National Farmers Union said, “Where on earth did they get this number from? I suspect that it includes so called ‘lifestyle farms’ that don’t produce significant amounts of food.
“Such small parcels of land are often bought by city folk looking for an exciting new vocation - unlike family-run farms that have grown to many hundreds of acres over generations. It is these farms that supply the vast bulk of the UK’s food. Remove the ‘life-style’ farms from this equation and these figures will flip, with three quarters of family farms now incurring an Inheritance Tax bill”
The climate agenda has been attacking farms for years with many UK farmers now being 100% funded by the British taxpayer to not grow food! OK, we all agree with the climate issue but how does it make sense to stop growing food in the UK and importing everything? Add the costs and the carbon emitted in transporting every tomato, potato and lettuce by plane or ship into the UK?
If the country is involved in a war at some point in the future, which is highly likely, the enemy will of course attack our supply lines and we will all starve to death.
THIS IS MADNESS
How quickly we forget Clement Attlee’s post-war government and the 1947 Agriculture Act committing to feeding the nation, declaring never again would the British people face food rationing.
And then there is one further unpleasant thought. Labour have committed to building 250,000 new houses per year for the life of this parliament. That’s one million new homes but very little land to build them unless hundreds of farmers sell up and the government or friendly investors snap up the land for a song and then make that available to the Government to build upon.
Where else will they build 702 new homes PER DAY? Starmer has already sneakily announced a new word for land – now there is green belt, brown sites and now grey sites. If there is no farmer wanting to use the land, might that become a grey site and therefore buildable?
If so, this is not only the most evil and the most devastating generational tax raid in history, but a crime against humanity and every single citizen in this once green and pleasant land.
