London, UK (Agencies): Hundreds of farmers descended on the British capital on Monday to decry the government’s plans to change the country’s inheritance tax policies, which they say will force many farms into bankruptcy. The protest saw tractors blocking the streets around the Houses of Parliament as British lawmakers debated an e-petition with nearly 151,000 signatures calling to preserve the current inheritance tax exemptions for working farm estates.
The policy, announced in the budget by the ruling Labour Party last year, will come into effect in April 2026, scrapping a longstanding exemption that meant no inheritance tax was paid to pass down family farms. According to the updated policy, agricultural assets worth over £1 million ($1.24 million) would be liable for the tax at 20% when handed down to heirs after the owner’s death.
The day-long tractor rally, organized by Save British Farming, was staged as British lawmakers debated the e-petition. The protest is intended to protect the country’s food security, political commentator Katie Hopkins told media, emphasizing that the farmers were not demanding subsidies or other state funding.
“They’re just asking to keep the farms they inherited from their parents so they could give them to their kids. They’re just asking to get up at five o’clock in the morning so they can feed the nation,” Hopkins said.
Much like previous rallies, the farmers entered Westminster on their tractors honking and holding signs reading “We all need a farmer,” “Food security first,” and “Let’s stand together,” among numerous other slogans.
According to Dan Willis, one of the participants in the rally, land owned by farmers is not an asset for trade as it is used for growing crops and grazing livestock.
“We may sit amongst this massive asset, but without that asset, that’s how we earn our living,” he said. “Once you start taxing my tools, I can’t do my job, and I can’t pay any taxes.”
“Understand the basic mathematics of how they’ve got it so far wrong; it is unsurvivable from how we can move forward as it stands today,” Willis highlighted.
Tom Bradshaw, the head of the National Farmers Union, argued that the farmers do not object to paying taxes, but that they prefer to pay tax on produce “rather than a death tax, which is simply unaffordable and unacceptable.”
Amid protests in November, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer defended the imposition of the controversial tax, arguing that the overwhelming majority of farmers would be exempt from the measure. Starmer also said that the government was taking “tough decisions that were necessary to stabilize our economy.”