On Tuesday, I will be joining a Westminster demonstration for the first time in my life. Yes, I’m a guy more comfortable behind a laptop than sitting in front of a speaker, who once believed the pinnacle of rural activism was proper recycling segregation. But something spurred me into action: the plight of British farmers under proposed changes to inheritance tax.
Now, I’m not a farmer. But for five years, I lived in Little Brington, a beautiful farming village in the Northamptonshire countryside. There I truly realized the essence of multi-generational farming. Families whose names have been etched in the same fields for centuries, their livelihoods tied to the land like ancient roots. These families not only work the land, they are the land.
When I heard Rachel Reeves announce the proposed changes to inheritance tax, my first reaction was disbelief. These policies sound like they were dreamed up in some Whitehall echo chamber by people who believe milk comes from Tesco and wheat arrives pre-cut. The new rules, which could force families to sell parts of their land to pay inheritance tax, threaten not only their livelihoods, but their heritage, history and, frankly, our food security.
If you’ve ever watched Clarkson FarmYou’ll know what I’m talking about. Jeremy Clarkson, the unlikely hero of farming, has pulled back the pastoral curtain to reveal the dismal economics of British farming. A farmer might have 400 or 500 acres of land worth £10,000 an acre, plus a farmhouse and some broken machinery totaling another few million. On paper, they are millionaires. But in reality? The average British farmer makes a profit of around £75,000 in a good year. Factor in bad weather, volatile market prices, and high costs, and it’s easy to see how the balance sheet ends up looking like a bad joke.
However, under these proposed changes to inheritance tax, farmers are being treated like wealthy oligarchs. Imagine a family that has spent generations managing 500 acres of farmland, only to find that when the patriarch or matriarch dies, a tax bill forces them to sell large portions of their holdings. It’s not just a financial blow, it’s an emotional and cultural shock. This comes at a time when we must do everything we can to protect British farming.
Because let’s be clear: farming isn’t just about fields and tractors. It’s about feeding the nation. British farmers already face relentless competition from cheap imports and looming uncertainty over trade agreements. By adding punitive inheritance taxes to the mix, you are essentially dismantling an industry that is already hanging by a thread.
Living in Little Brington has given me a front row seat to the quiet heroism of farm life. I remember waking up to the hum of tractors before sunrise, seeing sheep huddled against the winter winds, and chatting with neighbors, who could tell you the exact day their grandfather bought the land we were standing on. Farming is not just a job, it is an identity, a legacy, and a calling.
But they are also relentless, underpaid, and often ungrateful. Watching Clarkson Farm drove home the point that farming is not for the faint of heart. It’s a high-risk, high-pressure business where one bad season can spell disaster. However, these are the people who ensure that milk, meat and vegetables reach our plates. It is a responsibility they bear with dignity, even as policymakers pile more weight on their already hunched shoulders.
That is why I will stand with British farmers next Tuesday. I’ll be there in my not-so-country coat, maybe holding a thermos of coffee and wondering how to chant without feeling like an idiot. But I will also be there because this is not just a fight for the farmers, this is a fight for all of us. Fighting for the landscapes we love, the food we depend on, and the communities that make Britain what it is.
The proposed changes to inheritance tax are not just bad policy, they are a betrayal of the people who feed this country. We are talking about families who work seven days a week, 365 days a year, in conditions where most of us cannot last a day. However, they are expected to accept that the government could step in and take away a huge piece of their property just because they had the audacity to die.
It is not about special treatment for farmers, it is about justice. It’s about realizing that farming is not like other businesses. You can’t liquidate a few hundred acres without basically ruining the operation. You can’t put a price on centuries of heritage. You certainly cannot replace British farmers with faceless conglomerates and expect the same care and commitment to the land.
Former Labor chancellor John McTernan has suggested that what Starmer is doing to farms is “what Thatcher did to coal mines”.
So, yes, I will be at Westminster. Not only will I protest the tax changes, I will stand with the farmers of Little Brington and everywhere else. For the people who rise before dawn to tend their flocks, who struggle in the rain and snow to reap their crops, and who live and breathe the land in a way that most of us will never understand.
This is not just their fight, it is our fight as well. Because when farms disappear, we will realize too late what we have lost. I personally refuse to let this happen without a fight.
If you would like to join the protest on Tuesday, November 19, organizers are asking people who plan to attend Online registration Firstly so they can work with the Metropolitan Police on managing numbers as well as communicating maps and itineraries.