Farmers are busy people, often completely immersed in a lifestyle and a sector that demands their total attention and dedication.
They kept going throughout the pandemic. They’ve been untroubled by the great working-from-home debate. They’ve put up with policy changes, regulatory reform, subsidy reform, Brexit checks, weather events, supply chain disruption, Whitehall bureaucracy, rising costs and falling prices.
They’ve endured all of this on top of the many other hardships visited upon the country at large in recent years, including the energy shocks and the cost of living crisis.
They are, by nature, a hardy breed – not given to complaining in public and certainly not often to be found in their thousands protesting in the heart of Whitehall. Anger (often incredulity) over the government’s changes to inheritance tax has forced this hard-working group to take action.
Ministers insist only 500 farms a year would be affected, farmers (armed with advice from specialist accountants and lawyers) say the government’s forecasts are laughable. The battle lines are drawn.
Yesterday’s protest was powerful for many reasons; the different generations taking part, the good-natured but determined atmosphere, the mass representation of a group that rarely troubles Westminster and, of course, the presence of our country’s most famous farmer – Jeremy Clarkson. As The Sun newspaper notes, Clarkson’s approval rating among the public is +17, while his new foe Keir Starmer currently languishes on -22.
The Prime Minister was grilled by journalists yesterday, and in response to the accusation that he just doesn’t understand farmers’ concerns he replied “My first job was on a farm.” Not all farm labourers go on to become the Director of Public Prosecutions, leader of the Labour party and Prime Minister, but he needs to offer farmers more than an inspirational story of his struggle from the plough to the corridors of power.
City AM’s reporters spoke to dozens of farmers on yesterday’s protests, and their frustration was palpable. Mary Dennis had travelled up from her family farm near Bristol. “For us it’s our house, our living, our businesses, our everything,” she said, adding “we scratch a living and now we’re losing our culture.” A couple who farm in Oxfordshire said: “Everyone we know is here.”
The government chose this battle, and now they have met their enemy. It seems the war is just getting started.