LONDON — Over 10,000 farmers, their families and supporters came from across the U.K. to rally outside Parliament Nov. 19. They demanded the government scrap its imposition of a 20% inheritance tax on farms valued at more than 1 million pounds ($1.26 million). The measure was announced in Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ recent budget.
They carried signs saying, “Rachel Reeves Queen of Thieves” and “Stop milking us dry.” The protest took place while the National Farmers’ Union, which is dominated by wealthy capitalist farmers, lobbied members of Parliament nearby.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government claims the tax will only affect a few hundred of the richest farmers and alleges it’s necessary to fund the National Health Service.
Farmers say otherwise. The government measures farmers’ assets to include land, machinery, nonresidential buildings, fertilizer and livestock. A new combine harvester alone costs 500,000 pounds, to say nothing of the value of the land. The National Farmers’ Union says up to 70,000 farmers will be hit by the tax.
The march follows years of increasing input costs for feed, fuel and fertilizer and declining incomes (down 73% for cereal and 68% for dairy farmers between 2022 and 2023), alongside record prices for land pushed up by wealthy speculators. As a result, many farmers are heavily indebted.
“We can’t even raise the cost of our milk because it’s the big supermarkets who set our prices,” Geoffrey Bond who farms 600 acres in North Devon, told the Daily Telegraph at the march. “I still owe the bank 1 million pounds and that’s more than enough debt to pass on,” he added. “We are under intolerable pressure.”
“I don’t think farmers will back down,” Briony Greenland, a mixed sheep and beef farmer from Devon, told the Militant.