Farmers protest against Inheritance Tax change

Also see my exhibition, Starmer Farmer Harmer at Black Ivory in Muswell Hill, London.

Buy the placards in my Etsy shop at: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1881218608/starmer-farmer-harmer-placard-ready-to

Protest 2, 11th December 2024:

To have well functioning family farms, there needs to be recognition in tax law of the huge amount of land, work and capital investment they take to run, per £1 each farmer gets in the pocket. Especially regarding inheritance tax, which, under Labour’s new plans, will mean impossible payment conditions for the family farm to meet, without selling off all, or a large chunk of their existing business. Moving towards one-size-fits-all inheritance tax, when one size clearly doesn’t, makes no sense to me and punishes valuable contributors to our country, completely unnecessarily. Starmer’s Labour (the self-declared “Party for working people” who made a big fuss about looking after farmers and recognising their needs, in the run up to the general election) are planning to reverse existing recognition family farms have regarding this. I think this is a catastrophically bad idea, and will have terrible consequences, not just for UK family farms, but for the UK in general. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

I’m officially claiming “Starmer Farmer Harmer”. I thought the slogan up on the bus last month and used it for my placard at the first demo, see “Protest 1” section below. Didn’t see my slogan anywhere at the first demo, other than on my placard. Now, at the second demo, it’s everywhere. Although some had re-ordered the words. Cheekier still, how about adding a “the” and selling it on Etsy?. Do I get commission? Even saw my exact slogan on the front of two of the tractors. When I took the same placard as I had at the first demo to the second one, today, this time, it had the “Starmer Farmer Harmer” written on both sides. Instantly double your audience. Probably doubled my copycats for the next demo. Maybe I should say “suspected plagiarism”, like I did Delaine Le Bas. Different story. Spoke to the Evening Standard:

A photographer took this photo when I was sat outside the Houses of Parliament several hours too early for the demo. Thought I might as well display the sign for the passing traffic. Ended up in the Mail Online. As did this one.

Protest 1, November 2024:

This posts discussion caught fire on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1gwbtcb/comment/ly8aon5/

Yesterday I went to the farmers’ protest in Whitehall, London against the changes to inheritance tax, which I see as an attack on some of the most hardworking, underpaid, undervalued people in our country. Why make it difficult for family farms to pass down their profession to the next generation?

Drop the family farm tax. Save family farms from Starmer the farmer harmer.

My main sign read “STARMER FARMER HARMER”. I put it up against the railings at Downing Street, outside Westminster tube and at the foot of Churchill’s statue near the Houses of Parliament. I also took another crap A4 sign that was too small, confusing, and factually inaccurate that had Starmer going after the farmers like Thatcher (as much as Wilson?) went after the miners.

The idea that having a farm worth over a few million in land value and assets defines them as “rich” is rubbish. The farmers don’t see that cash. Where are they going to get the money from to keep running? They’re using their land, time and assets to work for less than minimum wage to put food on our shelves. To get a loan and pay back, even over decades is just another blow to grafters struggling to survive as it is. Assuming they’d even get a loan. A few Labour drones were on TV last night trying to justify it. One even said that if people were told only 500 odd farms would be affected, the public wouldn’t care. More rubbish. I’m no farmer, but I’d care if this was happening to just one farm, let alone 500.

Another Labour MP said non-farmers would be unsympathetic to the farmers because we pay up to 40%. Again, not true. I’m no farmer, but I’d happily see farmers pay 0% and me 40% because, unlike them, I’m not getting up at the crack of dawn to work myself into the ground so that the rest of the country can eat. This is what these MP’s expect us to believe? They think we can’t see through their nonsense.

Starmer was all over the farmers in the run up to the election. All this talk of saying they wouldn’t be raising taxes and would be looking after the “workers”. All this talk about everything being “fully costed”. If it was fully costed, where was it in Labour’s pre-election manifesto? With the pensioner winter fuel cuts, early prison releases, Chagos Islands and Twitter policing? Anything else they forgot to mention?

Who works harder than farmers? If farmers aren’t the “workers”, who is? And now Starmer’s in, off he goes after them and their livelihoods. Their kids’ livelihoods. Their way of life. Making out now it’s to help the NHS. Funny how with politicians, it’s always to fund the NHS and not the wars, private consultants, and whatever other HS2ey vanity projects they like tying us up in. Tories and Labour are done for me. As far as I can tell, they’re as bad as each other and are now living entirely off their brand. We’ve got The Workers Party on the left and Reform on the right. Tories and Labour both betrayed their voters, and both lefties and righties now have options other than them. The 500 million they’d expect to take in a years Family Farm Tax would cover NHS running costs for one day.

Now watch the farmland fall into the hands of the super rich. Watch the little guy get crushed. Watch the UK lose its family based food production. Cheers Labour. I’m hoping Starmer will get a bit of pressure from within his own party. Surely there’s a few of them that think taking land from the workers and virtually placing it in the hands of the super-rich isn’t exactly consistent with their left-wing beliefs. Even if so, will any have the balls to speak out? Where’s Robin Cook when you need him?