Farmers Protest Starmer Tax Raid Piling on Post-Brexit Misery

  • UK prime minister grapples with backlash from rural interests
  • Government says aim to tackle loophole pushing up land prices
A farmer drives a tractor over Westminster Bridge during a protest by farmers over inheritance tax changes, in London, UK, on Nov. 19.Photographer: Chris J. Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
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They piled into central London in their thousands, mostly on foot but some in tractors, with placards reading “No Farmers, No Food, No Future” and “The Final Straw” to protest the new Labour government’s decision to impose inheritance tax on farms for the first time in over three decades.

Speaking to the crowd on Tuesday was Clare Wise, a fifth-generation farmer with sheep, cows and crops in northern England who said the new levy would “cripple” the business for her children if it was ever called in. “Farmers are asset rich, but we are cash poor,” she said, accusing Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s administration of seeking to “destroy my and your farms forever.”