Government accused of ‘crucifying’ farmers as protest held at Westminster

The Labour Government has been accused of “crucifying” farmers as they descended on Westminster in tractors in protest over inheritance tax changes.

Farmers gathered by the Houses of Parliament on Thursday in a bid to maintain pressure on the Government to reverse the planned changes announced in Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Budget.

They also hit out at the abrupt closure of the Government’s flagship nature-friendly farming payments scheme, with one describing it as “another attack on the countryside”.

The Environment Department (Defra) announced on Tuesday that the sustainable farming incentive (SFI), which pays farmers in England for “public goods” such as insecticide-free farming, wildflower strips and managing ponds and hedgerows, was fully allocated for this year.

As a result, the scheme has been closed for new applications with immediate effect.

Thursday’s protest, which included seven tractors, came ahead of a debate on the future of farming by MPs in the Commons.

Among those at the protest was Henry Graham, who owns a family farm in Newbury.

He said: “We’re here today to show our disgust at what the Labour Government has recently brought in with the new laws of inheritance tax bill and how they are crucifying farmers.

“They need to wake up and realise that we are the backbone of the industry. We are the reason the countryside looks as stunning as it does.

“They are going to cripple our countryside and they don’t realise the detrimental effect they’re going to have.”

The policy would require farmers to pay a rate of 20% inheritance tax on agricultural property and land worth more than £1 million when they previously paid none.

There is a higher threshold of £3 million for couples passing on their farms and the changes are due to come into force from April 2026.

Mr Graham said his mother, who runs the farm alongside him, “doesn’t want to be here after the law actually comes into fruition which is a terrible position to be in”.

“If that Bill comes in, I cannot afford to farm,” he said.

Mr Graham was also in the process of an SFI application, which took years of designing, but will now no longer go ahead.

“It seems to be another attack on the countryside. It seems never-ending. We will keep turning up.”

Another farmer, Roger Denton, accused the Government of waging a “class war” and urged them to “listen to the farmers”.

He told the PA news agency: “Personally, my parents are well into their 90s, they still own everything. If they die before April 1 2026 then there will be no inheritance tax.

“If they die after that we’ll have a three and half million tax bill.”

“This is a class war that they’re up to at the moment I’m afraid,” he went on, adding: “The action will keep going, it is not going to kill us off that quick.”

Shadow farming minister Robbie Moore, who turned up to support the protest, told PA the closure of the SFI payment scheme the “cruellest betrayal yet”.

He said: “This Labour Government is absolutely taking a sledgehammer to everything that is associated with driving economic growth within our food farming sector.

“Last night we heard another kick in the teeth for our farming community through them stopping the sustainable farming incentive (SFI) which is on top of all the other budgetary challenges, on top of the family farm tax.

“Our farmers deserve a huge amount of support. That’s why I’m out here supporting and we’ve got a debate again in the chamber later today to hold this disastrous Labour Government to account.”

And Sir Roger Gale, another Conservative MP who came out to support the farmers, said: “The farmers provide the food that we put on our tables and if we don’t have them then we become immediately dependent on imported food, very often over thousands of miles from other countries and it puts our whole food security at risk.

“We can’t allow that to happen.”