Tractors circle Westminster as farmers protest inheritance tax rise
Thousands of farmers marched on Westminster today in protest against the government’s plans to impose inheritance tax on farms.
The Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been urged to meet with representatives from the industry after she unveiled plans in the Budget to impose inheritance tax (IHT) on farms worth more than £1m from April 2026.
The move sparked outrage and triggered a day of protest on Tuesday, with thousands of farmers and agricultural workers gathering in Whitehall to express their disapproval.
A line of tractors circled the Houses of Parliament draped in Union Jack flags and blasting their horns, while protestors held signs reading: “No farmers, no food”, “Bullocks to Reeves”, “Hands off our farms, Robber Reeves”, and “Keir Starmer Farmer Harmer”.
Speaking to GB News from the G20 summit in Rio, the Prime Minister said he understood the concerns but most farms worth up to £3m could be passed on tax free thanks to combined reliefs on the policy.
“I’m confident the vast majority of farms will not be affected… but I understand the concerns,” Sir Keir Starmer said. “I think the right thing to do is meet that concern and talk.”
Under the plans, farms would be hit with a 20 per cent inheritance tax on any value above £1m. However, no inheritance tax will be paid on the value of property up to £325,000, meaning the untaxed total could reach £1.325m.
If a farmer is married or in a civil partnership, their partner can pass on another £1.325m tax free, meaning the total untaxed amount can reach £2.65m, along with a further £175,000 tax-free if it is passed on to children or grandchildren. This brings the total untaxed amount for a farming couple to up to £3m.
Speaking to City PM, Julia Bartlet, a family farmer from Caerphilly, south Wales, insisted the protests would continue, and that the government “had better” reverse the policy.
Farmers ‘feel so strongly’
She said: “It’s not going to stop… it’s going to affect everyone – not just big farms. We came up on three buses from Cardiff. All of us are pulling together, we’re all united.”
Mary Dennis, a family farmer from Bristol, added: “It’s really hard for farmers to come and do this. People have doubled up on food so they can come. I’ve come to represent my family, we feel so strongly.”
Asked what she thought politicians had got wrong, she said: “They’ve got no idea. They need to set foot in a community and among farmers to understand our way of life.
“For us it’s our house, our living, our businesses, our everything. We scratch a living and now we’re losing our culture.”
A couple from Oxfordshire, who own a vineyard, said: “Everyone we know is here.”
The protest was also attended by former Top Gear and now Clarkson’s Farm presenter, Jeremy Clarkson, alongside fellow Amazon Prime stars Kaleb Cooper and Charlie Ireland.
Clarkson has previously said avoiding IHT was “the critical thing” in his decision to purchase farmland but told the PA news agency on Tuesday it was because he wanted to shoot.
Clarkson urges rethink
He said: “I’m here to support the farmers, it’s that simple, because they need all the help they can get really, even from me.
“As I understand it, it was a very rushed last-minute decision. I think we all make mistakes in life, and I think it’s time for them to say ‘we’ve cocked this one up a bit’ and back down.”
While National Farmers’ Union (NFU) president Tom Bradshaw insisted farmers would continue to push back until the Government scraps agricultural IHT changes.
He told Sky News: “This will carry on. They cannot have a policy in place which has such disastrous human impacts and think we’re going to go quiet. The membership has never been so united in trying to overturn something in the time that I’ve been farming.”
Shadow chancellor Mel Stride said: “We believe this government doesn’t understand the countryside or farming, [and] broke its promise when it said it would not be imposing IHT on farms.
“That’s going to have a devastating impact on the farming sector up and down the country with family farms broken up.”
Government pushback
But environment secretary Steve Reed insisted that only around 500 farms would be affected, stressing: “The vast majority of farms will not be affected by these changes to IHT.
“But it’s only right that we ask the very wealthiest to pay their fair share, otherwise we can’t fix services like the NHS that farmers rely on and people living in rural communities.”
The Labour government, he said, had allocated £5bn to support sustainable food production in the UK, as well as £60m in flooding support, and set up GB Energy to cut costs.
In response to calls for Rachel Reeves to meet farmers, Downing Street insisted the Treasury had been in contact with them about the inheritance tax changes.
While the NFU’s Bradshaw said Reeves had so far “refused to engage” with the union, a No10 spokeswoman said: “The Treasury has had engagement with the NFU” and the Prime Minister had met them in his “early weeks in office and regularly engages with all sectors”.
Reed met the NFU’s president on Monday night and will address the Country Land and Business Association (CLBA) on Thursday, the spokeswoman added.
A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said tractor drivers who ploughed through barriers at the farmers’ protests in central London will be “reported for the offence”.