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Jeremy Clarkson is right: Labour has 'shafted' farmers

Labour is turning its back on Britain's farmers. Credit: Getty

November 1, 2024 - 10:00am

We are about to learn the political salience of farming. Following an extraordinary rearrangement of rural representation at the last general election, this week’s Budget is the latest evidence that the Labour government is intent on stress-testing its new relationship with the countryside.

In July Labour won almost half the nation’s rural seats, a surprising turnaround for a party that has struggled in the countryside for over two decades. Labour’s rural fortunes waned from a Blairite zenith of roughly 100 rural constituencies in 2001 to a mere 22 heading into the 2024 election, when Starmer captured 114 countryside seats — more than five times as many.

One might think Labour would be cautious with its new rural support, or even triumphalist. Yet a few months later, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has frozen the farming budget at 2014 levels — a significant cut in real terms given inflation — and capped agricultural property relief.

Farmers’ inheritance tax relief rarely lights up the front pages, but this time it has cut through. There is real concern for the future of 70,000 family farms which now face having to sell land to pay inheritance tax bills, a concern both Jeremy Clarkson and Kirstie Allsopp have starkly characterised as “shafting” farmers.

Labour has long been guilty of writing the countryside off as Tory territory. Indeed, the party has often refused to engage with rural issues — a trend that has gone on for years. Yet prior to the election, there was much briefing that things had changed: Labour was listening to the countryside and talking to farmers.

As it turned out, farming — and even nature — barely featured in Labour’s manifesto. It was constrained to a small paragraph in the “Clean Energy” section, and despite the obviously squeezed word count, the party still found space to include an urban-coded promise to end the badger cull. Anecdotally, there was little sense in Labour policymaking circles that agriculture and land management could contribute to growth; if there was any agricultural priority at all, it was preventing farmer protests spreading to the UK from the continent.

Yet, as I wrote here back in February, British farmers suffer from a crisis of political confidence that has mostly kept tractors off the streets of London. As their European counterparts protested across Ireland, Belgium, France, Poland and Germany, our farmers fretted over whether the public would support them if they dared raise a ruckus of their own.

Perhaps that lack of confidence in farming’s political significance has reached Labour HQ. That is why Reeves might believe that the farmers won’t make a fuss — because they can’t carry the public with them. Countryside folk are prone to complain about the influx of outsiders who object to cow smells and tractor noises, so it is possible that Labour won 114 rural seats because the countryside is not even dominated by countryside voters anymore.

On the other hand, to the frustration of anyone who wishes it might look otherwise, the British people love the countryside. Polls have found our rural landscapes are second only to the NHS in inspiring pride in Britain and rank as the fifth most significant attribute of Englishness. In addition, 93% of people think the countryside is part of our national heritage, and I am quite sure that heritage is built on affection for the small family farm.

With local elections on the horizon, any sense that these businesses are under attack could have ramifications in wards far outside the confines of those newly red rural constituencies. Thanks to the Budget, British farmers are about to find out just how politically significant they are.


Liam Stokes is the CEO of the British Game Alliance.

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Caradog Wiliams
Caradog Wiliams
3 hours ago

Farming does not fit with NetZero2050. Cows can’t graze on grass because of gaseous emanations so they must be taken indoors and fed on special food. Meanwhile, the fields are to be set aside for wind turbines and solar panels.
The aim must be to import as much food as possible so that other governments have to face the responsibility for NetZero. The same happened with blast furnaces at Port Talbot – let the mugs in other countries make the steel. Nothing must get in the way of NetZero.
Most important of all is that all discussion must be banned. As I type, the police can see that I support NetZero so I am safe from prosecution.

John Tyler
John Tyler
45 minutes ago

Haven’t you heard of the new police unit: the Irony Department, dedicated to rooting out rebels like you.

Mrs R
Mrs R
2 hours ago

The attack on farming is now out in the open. It is happening across the West and it is time people woke up to what is going on under their noses. Once we lose total control of food production we become ever more dependent on the mega corporations that have been slowly poisoning populations for decades now. We really must be prepared to stand up alongside our farmers and fight against these sinister, anti-human plans.

P Carson
P Carson
25 minutes ago
Reply to  Mrs R

NO, there is an attack on modern energy-dependent industry, jobs and lifestyle.

Nik Jewell
Nik Jewell
15 minutes ago
Reply to  P Carson

I see three factions with shifting alliances. The billionaires, the degrowthers, and the fully automated luxury communists.

Matt M
Matt M
2 hours ago

Looks to me like the budget favoured the public sector unions and the Labour-backing “green”millionaires grubbing for net zero handouts whilst penalising supposedly Tory-supporting constituencies like farmers, small business owners and pensioners.
Two-tier budget, Two-tier Britain, Two-tier Keir.

John Tyler
John Tyler
3 hours ago

So much for food security!

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
2 hours ago

Most heartless cowardly vindictive and disheartening element of the budget. Notwithstanding the perennially complaining chorus of farmers I confess I grew tired of hearing long ago. Or that the ‘save the countryside’ campaign I remember seemed then like a hue and cry raised long after the horse had bolted. Now, if there is to be any hope of salvation, this is not a lament or a protest for farmers alone to feel and raise but one that should be felt and raised by all of us. Although God help us and forgive us, we are ruled and misguided here more by what we put in our mouths than what comes out of them.

Last edited 1 hour ago by UnHerd Reader
Bret Larson
Bret Larson
31 minutes ago

If you’re going to make an efficient communist state you need to get rid of the kulaks.

JR Stoker
JR Stoker
1 hour ago

Whilst not disagreeing with this, there is no reason why farmers should have tax benefits that other family businesses do not. Or indeed endless subsidies and breaks which other businesses do not. The whole sector needs a new approach, though they won’t get one from this Labour shower.

Last edited 1 hour ago by JR Stoker
j watson
j watson
1 hour ago

Author fails to mention Jeeza himself had previous admitted his farm purchase an inheritance tax avoidance measure. He won’t be alone will he.
Reading the details the exemptions mean it’ll be farms with value over £2m that get hit, not £1m, and the tax is spread over a significant number of years.
The vested interests will make out the poor yeoman Farmer is being hit, but it’s much more likely the huge land owner who rents the farm to the yeoman and their family.

Michael Cazaly
Michael Cazaly
16 minutes ago
Reply to  j watson

A farm worth less than £2M isn’t viable even with the subsidies. Those worth over £2M have just become not worth keeping.

Tony Price
Tony Price
2 hours ago

This was an attack on tax avoidance by the very wealthy buying up farmland to pass on without tax. Jeremy Clarkson was very specific in interviews that he bought his farm in order to avoid inheritance tax – no wonder he doesn’t like this change! In practice this will affect relatively few farms and even those it does will have 10 years to pay off – it also gives double the £1m if passing between spouses and then down. If this halts or slows the massive recent inflation in farmland values it will help real farmers. Calm down!

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 hour ago
Reply to  Tony Price

‘A million’ has outlived it’s meaning as a ‘lot’, no? At least when applied to assets. Applied to a tax bill, though, it’s still pretty stiff for any but billionaires?

Stephen Follows
Stephen Follows
1 hour ago
Reply to  Tony Price

Good luck when there’s no food in the shops.

Bret Larson
Bret Larson
29 minutes ago

You can buy your food online from China.