4 days Ago By Jacob Phillips
Jeremy Clarkson is expected to join thousands of other farmers in Westminster to protest against Labour’s inheritance tax changes. The former Top Gear presenter, who has been praised for his reality series Clarkson’s Farm, has reportedly been in talks with organisers to give a speech as a row about the new “tractor tax” deepens. The rally on Tuesday will hear from celebrities and farming leaders while a procession to Parliament Square will be spearheaded by children on toy tractors.
Organisers have told those coming that they should not bring their farm machinery. Protests already erupted outside the Welsh Labour conference over the new taxes for farms worth more than £1 million, exacerbated by uncertainty about Treasury figures the Budget move is based on. Meanwhile last week Clarkson accused the government of “ethnically cleansing” the British countryside to make way for “immigrant towns” on farmland.
The 64-year-old wrote in The Sun to criticise the inheritance tax extension proposed by Chancellor Rachel Reeves. He wrote: “I’m becoming more and more convinced that Starmer and Reeves have a sinister plan. “They want to carpet bomb our farmland with new towns for immigrants and net zero wind farms.
“But before they can do that, they have to ethnically cleanse the countryside of farmers. “That’s why they had a Budget which makes farming nigh on impossible.” Under the plan, inheritance tax thresholds will be extended for two more years until 2030 , allowing the first £325,000 of any estate to remain tax-free before being taxed at 40 per cent.
Farmers argue they are bearing the brunt of a system that the mega-wealthy exploit to avoid paying taxes. Farmers will rally at Whitehall against the changes announced in last month’s Budget on Tuesday, while separately the National Farmers’ Union will hold a mass lobby of MPs in their efforts to get the Government to rethink. “I think the industry is feeling betrayed, feeling angry,” National Farmers’ Union President Tom Bradshaw said.
He told Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips: “We have a Government saying food security is a critical part of national security, yet they’ve ripped the rug out from that very industry which is going to invest in food security for the future.” Treasury data shows that around three-quarters of farmers will pay nothing in inheritance tax as a result of the controversial changes announced in the Budget last month. However, farmers have challenged the figures, pointing instead to data from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which suggests 66% of farm businesses are worth more than the £1 million threshold at which inheritance tax will now need to be paid.
Sir Keir Starmer has said he is “absolutely confident” that the “vast majority of farms and farmers” will not be affected by changes to inheritance tax announced in the Budget. He added: “Obviously, there’s an issue around inheritance tax and I do understand the concern. “But for a typical case, which is parents with a farm they want to pass on to one of their children, by the time you’ve taken into account not only the exemption for the farm property itself, but also the exemption for spouse to spouse, then parent to child, it’s £3 million before any inheritance tax will be payable.
“That’s why I am absolutely confident the vast majority of farms and farmers will not be affected by this.”.
