Hundreds of enraged farmers took to their tractors and descended upon the Labour Party conference in Wales to protest the leftist government’s planned tax raid on farmers.
Following in the footsteps of farmers’ protest movements across Europe, tractors gathered outside the Labour Party conference in Llandudno, Wales, on Saturday to demonstrate their anger over Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s government’s plans to impose inheritance tax hikes on farms, North Wales Live reports.
Since 1984, family farms were largely exempt from paying inheritance tax on farmland or on farm buildings such as barns, cottages, or houses. However, under the fledgling Labour government’s tax-grabbing reforms, farms valued at over £1 million (£2m for married couples) will face an inheritance tax of 20 per cent.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has claimed that the tax raid would only impact “a very small number of agricultural properties.” However, farmers groups, such as the National Farmers’ Union, have warned that many farmers would be forced to sell some of their land to pay the tax.
Others have argued that while many farmers work for very little money, the value of their land has been artificially inflated by the housing crisis in Britain and the wealthy buying up farmland to escape inheritance taxes, and therefore, the tax would unfairly punish hard-working families.
The tractor protest on Saturday saw tractors clad with placards reading “Labour war on countryside”, “No farmers, no food”, and “Labour taxes=food shortages”.
A protesting farmer from the Conwy Valley, Aled Jones said outside the conference: “Farmers are working 70-hour weeks for less than the minimum wage. Their only benefit is that they can pass on a farm to their families.
“One per cent of the population is producing food for the rest of the country and it seems that this policy that’s been brought in is a left-wing, vindictive policy just to try and punish people who have any asset behind them. People have come (to the protest) from all over the country.”
“This is not about wanting money, we don’t want money. You’re taxing us on money we’ve never had. They are going to tax people on the value of something.
“They (the UK Treasury) are talking about the number of farms being impacted being very, very low, but the NFU (National Farmers’ Union of England and Wales) is saying it’s expecting that over 70 per cent of farms will be affected by this, in Wales. Land will never have a value unless it’s sold, and yet you (the UK Government) are going to tax us on it.”
Nevertheless, Prime Minsiter Starmer told his party’s conference in Wales that he would “defend our decisions in the Budget all day long.”
“I will defend the tough decisions that would necessary to stabilise our economy and I will defend protecting the pay slips of working people, fixing the foundations of our economy and investing in the future of Britain and the future of Wales, finally turning the page on austerity once and for all,” Starmer added.
The farmers have garnered support from Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, whose populist party seeks to woo disaffected working-class people in Wales away from the increasingly urban-elite Labour Party. Mr Farage has claimed that Starmer is seeking to force farmers to shut down and grab their land to build new housing projects for migrants.
