UK farmers plan to protest in Parliament over tax hikes they say will destroy family farms

LONDON (AP) – With banners, bull horns, toy tractors and an angry message, British farmers descended on Parliament Tuesday to protest an inheritance tax hike they say will deal a “hammer blow” to struggling family farms.

UK farmers are rarely as violent as their European neighbours, and Britain has never seen large-scale protests like those that have hit cities in France and other European countries. However, now the farmers say they will strengthen their hand if the government does not listen.

“Everybody is going crazy,” said Olly Harrison, who is organizing the protest which aims to fill the road outside Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office with farmers. He said that many farmers “want to enter the streets and block the roads and eat French fully.”

Organizers urged protesters not to bring farm machinery into central London on Tuesday. Instead, children on toy tractors will lead a march around Parliament Square after a panel of speakers including former “Top Gear” TV host and celebrity farmer Jeremy Clarkson. Another 1,800 farmers plan to hold a “mass reception” for lawmakers nearby, organized by the National Farmers’ Union.

Volatile weather exacerbated by climate change, global instability and the upheaval caused by Britain’s 2020 exit from the European Union have all added to the burden on UK farmers. Many feel that the Labor government’s tax reform, which is part of a bid to raise billions of pounds to fund public services, is the last straw.

“Four of the last five years, we’ve lost money,” said Harrison, who grows grain on his family’s farm near Liverpool in northwest England. “The thing that made me continue to do it for my children. And maybe a little appreciation for the world allows you to keep borrowing, keep going. But now that just disappeared overnight.”

The highlight is the government’s decision in last month’s budget to withdraw a tax break from the 1990s that exempted agricultural goods from tax. From April 2026, farms worth more than 1 million pounds ($1.3 million) face a 20% tax when the owner dies and is passed on to the next generation. That’s part of the 40% inheritance tax rate charged on other land and property in the UK

Starmer’s centre-left government says the “vast majority” of farms – about 75% — will not be affected, and various loopholes mean a farming couple can pass on an inheritance worth three million pounds ($3.9 million) to their children. tax free.

Proponents of the tax say it will give money back to wealthy people who bought farmland as an investment, raising the price of land in the process.

“It has become the most effective way for the very rich to avoid paying inheritance tax,” wrote Environment Secretary Steve Reed in the Daily Telegraph newspaper, adding that high prices were “depriving young farmers of the dream of owning their own farm.”

But the farmers’ union says that more than 60% of working farms may face tax problems. And while farms may be worth a lot on paper, the profits are often small. Government figures show that incomes for many types of farms fell in the year to the end of February 2024, in some cases by more than 70%. Average farm income ranged from 17,000 pounds ($21,000) for design livestock farms to 143,000 pounds ($180,000) for specialized poultry farms.

The last ten years have been turbulent for British farmers. Many farmers supported Brexit as an opportunity to exit the EU’s widely criticized Common Agricultural Policy. Since then, the UK has introduced reforms such as paying farmers to restore the environment and promote biodiversity, as well as food production.

Some farmers have welcomed the measures, but many feel that goodwill has been unfairly squandered by successive governments, the failure of subsidies to keep pace with inflation and new trade deals with countries including Australia and New Zealand that have opened the door to cheaper imports.

The Vice President of the National Farmers’ Union, David Exwood, said the tax increase “is the last straw in a series of difficult decisions and difficult situations that farmers have had to face.”

The government “completely destroyed their confidence in the industry,” he said.

The government insists it will not reconsider the inheritance tax, and its political opponents see an opportunity. The main opposition Conservative Party – which was in government for 14 years until July — and the civil rights group Reform UK are both fighting for farmers. Other far-right groups also supported Tuesday’s protest, although the organizers are not affiliated with them.

Harrison says the show is intended as a “show of unity in government” and an effort to inform the public “that farmers are food producers, not millionaires who avoid taxes.”

“It’s every single industry, whether you’re a landowner or a tenant, whether it’s beef, milk, dairy, grains, vegetables, lettuce — you name it, everybody’s been hammered on this,” he said.

“Every farmer loses.”