Farmers protest in Westminster: Live updates as Jeremy Clarkson set to join thousands on London march to demand Labour axes new inheritance tax for farms amid fury over Keir Starmer plan

Farmers are taking to the streets this week amid a furious backlash on changes to inheritance tax for farmers.

Here are answers to some of the key questions.

Previously, farming businesses qualified for 100% relief on inheritance tax on agricultural property and business property.

But now the tax is being imposed on farms worth more than £1 million, with an effective tax rate of 20% on assets above the threshold, rather than the normal 40% rate for inheritance tax.

The Government says that the actual threshold before paying inheritance tax could be as much as £3 million, once exemptions for each partner in a couple and for the farm property are taken into account.

• Why have the changes been brought in?

The Government has said “difficult decisions” had to be made to fill a £22 billion fiscal hole it inherited from the Tories, and it is targeting the agricultural inheritance tax relief to make it fairer.

It said figures showed that the 7% of wealthiest estates account for 40% of the total value of agricultural property relief, costing the taxpayer £219 million.

• Why do farmers say the changes are a problem?

According to the NFU, while farms may have a high nominal asset value – the value of their land and business assets – the returns from farming are often very low, so farming families may not have the reserves to pay for inheritance tax liabilities without selling off assets.

The NFU’s president Tom Bradshaw said the change had left elderly farmers in the “cruellest predicament”, as they may not live for another seven years to take advantage of exemptions for gifting assets, or to hand over assets in a way that qualifies for the gifting exemption.

He has also warned the changes could undermine investment as farmers will be wary of increasing the balance sheet as they will be liable to pay inheritance tax on it.

At the moment there seems to be something of an impasse, with the Prime Minister and his ministers sticking to their guns on the issue, and farmers insisting it must be reversed.

Farmers are taking to the streets for a rally, with thousands expected to turn out in Westminster today to show their anger at what one of the organisers, Lincolnshire farmer Andrew Ward, described as a “spiteful Budget which threatens the very heart of the countryside”.

The impact of today’s and any future protests is yet to be seen.

It is nearly three weeks since Rachel Reeves unveiled her huge tax-raising Budget.

Ministers always expected blowback. But few anticipated that changes to inheritance rules on farms would be such a big flashpoint.

Labour MPs representing rural seats are nervous about the scale of the backlash, and will get a noisy reminder of the anger in Westminster today.

Questions have been asked over whether the £500million a year brought in by the changes is worth the undoubted political strife, especially when the government is already fighting on so many other fronts.

However, so far Downing Street looks to be digging in, ruling out any kind of softening. The calculation is that while farmers might howl, there will be limited sympathy from the wider public.

A fourth-generation family farmer said there is a possibility he and other farmers will strike if changes to agricultural property relief are not reversed.

Richard Wainwright, 58, from Halifax, West Yorkshire, was at Church House Conference Centre in central London on Tuesday morning ahead of a meeting with the National Farmers’ Union (NFU).

Mr Wainwright, whose grandfather began farming with a few cows and delivered milk to the surrounding area said: ‘We are talking about possibly striking. I hope it doesn’t come to that because that’s seriously going to impact the food chain.’

On the impact on his farm, he said: ‘We’ve got to possibly sell a 20% share of the farmland to be able to cover the tax bill. For us it’s around £600,000 we are going to have to pay.

‘It’s like I’m going to have to buy my own farm back.’

Jeremy Clarkson is expected to defy doctors’ orders and lead thousands of farmers from Diddly Squat and descend on Westminster to protest against the inheritance tax raid.

Farmers gathering for today’s mass protest in London warned that ‘things will get bad very fast’ if the government refuses to scrap plans for inheritance tax on farms.

Thousands are set to descend on Westminster to vent their anger over what has been called the ‘family farm death tax’ introduced in last month’s Budget.

Fuming Clarkson, 64, is currently recovering from a life-saving heart operation and was ordered not to go on the march by his doctors and to ‘avoid stress’.

Despite this he – joined by co-star Kaleb Cooper – will lead ‘two coaches of farmers’ from Diddly Squat to demonstrate on the ‘hugely important issue’.

Today’s farmers’ protest is to take place in Westminster, central London.

Thousands of farmers are expected to gather by Richmond Terrace before parading down Whitehall and ending at Parliament Square, outside the Houses of Parliament.

Environment Secretary Steve Reed has treated the farming industry with ‘contempt’, the president of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) said.

Tom Bradshaw told LBC: ‘The way he’s treated the industry with contempt in what he’s been writing has landed very, very badly.’

Of the meeting he had with Mr Reed on Monday, the union president said: ‘I hope the Secretary of State was listening, I hope the Government are listening, I want to sit down with the Chancellor and sort this mess out.’

He also told the media this morning that farmers are ‘absolutely’ determined to continue putting pressure on the government until it ‘changes its mind’.

Labour has ‘destroyed’ a ‘contract’ between farming and the government dating back to the Second World War with its changes to inheritance tax, the president of the National Famers’ Union (NFU) has said.

Tom Bradshaw told Sky News: ‘There’s always been an understanding, a contract, between farming and society, farming and the government, ever since the Second World War, and this Labour Government have just destroyed that contract with the changes they proposed to the inheritance tax.’

‘We’d love to pay more tax,’ Mr Bradshaw continued. ‘If we get proper margins from food production, and we end up swelling the Treasury coffers, bring it on.

‘But at the moment the supply chain doesn’t give us those returns that enables us to save the money to pay the inheritance tax that this Government now wants to take.’

Jeremy Clarkson has made outrageous claims about a supposed ‘ethnic cleansing’ plot ahead of the farmers’ protest in Westminster later today.

Writing in his column in The Sun, Clarkson said: ‘I’m becoming more and more convinced that Starmer and Reeves have a sinister plan.

‘They want to carpet bomb our farmland with new towns for immigrants and net zero windfarms.

‘But before they can do that, they have to ethnically cleanse the countryside of farmers.’

Clarkson provided no evidence to back up his claims.

Former PM Liz Truss has given her backing to British farmers in today’s expected protests.

The shortlived leader said on X, formerly Twitter that the changed inheritance tax plans threaten to ‘tax family farms out of existence’.

She accused Labour of a ‘socialist attack’ and claimed that ‘the British way of life is under threat’.

The Government has contingency measures in place to protect food supplies if farming protests intensify, the policing minister Dame Diana Johnson has said.

Asked if she could guarantee that there will not be food shortages leading up to Christmas, she told Sky News: ‘Issues around food security are obviously national security issues.

‘There are plans in place, there are contingencies always in place to deal with that, but I’m confident that won’t happen.’

Policing minister Dame Diana Johnson has defended the changes to inheritance tax as farmers travelled to Westminster to campaign against the move.

Asked if she wanted to apologise to farmers, she told Times Radio: ‘I fully understand the strength of feeling that the farming community have and, of course, they have the right to come and protest and lobby Parliament, as we’re seeing happening already this morning.

‘But the Labour government, when it came in in July, was having to face some very difficult decisions because of the economic mess that we inherited and the £22 billion black hole in the public finances.

‘So, difficult decisions have had to be made. So, I think that that is the backdrop to this.

‘I also want to recognise that there is money going into farming. There’s over £5 billion over the next two years that the Government is putting into farming and the number of farms that will be affected by the changes are relatively small.’

There are fears far-right groups could today hijak the farmers’ protest in London against Rachel Reeves’ ‘vindictive’ inheritance tax raid.

Thousands are set to descend on Westminster to vent their anger over what has been called the ‘family farm death tax’ introduced in last month’s Budget.

But far-right groups have taken the opportunity to use social media to urge their ‘patriots’ to turn up.

Far-right YouTuber Paul Thorpe urged in a video for his followers to join the protest saying: ‘I’ll be there to support our farming community and I hope as many of you patriots will be there too.’

While former British National Party leader Nick Griffin has piggybacked on Jeremy Clarkson’s comments in which he accused the Labour Government of wanting to ‘ethnically cleanse’ the countryside in order to build ‘new immigrant towns’ over farmland.

• Read the full story by Matt Strudwick here

In March this year, more than 100 tractors rolled past Parliament as farmers protested over what they complained was a lack of support for food production in the UK.

Organised by Save British Farming and Fairness for Farmers of Kent, demonstrators claimed cheap food imports and unsupportive policies put forward by the then Conservative government had placed food security at risk.

Tractors flying Union flags were driven across the capital carrying signs with slogans such as ‘Save British farming’ and ‘No farming, no food, no future’.

The action took place after demonstrations across Europe where protests were held against European Union regulations and cheap imports.

An outraged farmer posted a video to explain why farmers are livid with changes to inheritance tax.

In a message aimed directly at Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Olly Harrison tells her, ‘You’ve just took 20pc of our shop floor, our fields, our soil, what we grow food in.

‘Farmers are so angry because when 20pc of your tools are being taken away it makes the business unsustainable.

Keir Starmer has refused to be drawn on whether farmers had been betrayed in the Labour budget when asked about the new tax on the way to the G20 summit in Brazil.

Speaking to reporters on the plane, Sir Keir said ‘it is very important that we support farmers’ but added:

Obviously, there’s an issue around inheritance tax and I do understand the concern.

But for a typical case, which is parents with a farm they want to pass on to one of their children, by the time you’ve taken into account not only the exemption for the farm property itself, but also the exemption for spouse to spouse, then parent to child, it’s £3 million before any inheritance tax will be payable.

That’s why I am absolutely confident the vast majority of farms and farmers will not be affected by this.

The Prime Minister also highlighted what he couched as wider support for farmers in Labour’s plans.

We’ve put £5bn in the Budget for the next two years into farming. That is not to be overlooked. That is the single biggest sum of money in a Budget over a two-year period that has ever been put down in relation to farming.

On top of that, there’s £50m in relation to flooding, which is hugely important and £200m in relation to the outbreak of disease and infection which can be absolutely devastating.

Ministers are desperately drawing up contingency plans to tackle food shortages if farmers strike over inheritance tax changes.

Transport Secretary Louise Haigh said the Government would ensure food security if it faces militant action over the plans.

Some farmers have warned that they could stop production which could empty supermarket shelves and prompt panic buying.

Asked about contingency plans for food security if farmers strike, Ms Haigh told Sky’s Trevor Phillips:

The Department for Environment and Food and Rural Affairs will be setting out plans for the winter and… setting out contingency plans and ensuring that food security is treated as the priority it deserves to be.’

She said that although the Government recognised the ‘difficult situation’ that many were in, the IHT changes were ‘fair and proportionate’.

• Read the full story by Daily Mail reporters Claire Ellicott and James Tozer here

Farmers have been left ‘betrayed’ by Labour’s inheritance tax raid and Rachel Reeves has ‘ripped the rug out’ from the industry, a union boss claimed on Sunday.

Tom Bradshaw, president of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), blasted the Chancellor’s Budget measures ahead of planned protests today.

Speaking to Sky News, he said:

I think the industry is feeling betrayed, feeling angry. We have a Government saying food security is a critical part of national security.

Yet they’ve ripped the rug out from that very industry which is going to invest in food security for the future.

But the NFU president said he did not ‘for one moment condone’ withholding food from supermarkets in protest.

That is not an NFU tactic, we do not support emptying supermarket shelves. But I do completely understand the strength of feeling that there is amongst farmers, they feel helpless today, and they’re trying to think of what can they do to try and demonstrate what this means to them.

So look, I understand their strength of feeling, but we are not supporting that action.

• Read the full story by our political correspondent Greg Heffer here

Keir Starmer’s inheritance tax raid on farmers ‘smells of incompetence’ and is hammering the party’s support in rural areas, a Labour peer has warned.

Baroness Mallalieu, who is also president of the Countryside Alliance and a part-time farmer in Somerset, likened the row to Tony Blair’s decision to ban fox hunting, which she also opposed.

The barrister, 78, lashed out at the decision to make wealthy farmers pay IHT on the agricultural value of their land for the first time – albeit at a discounted rate.

Ahead of a major protest by farmers planned for Westminster, the peer told the BBC’s Westminster Hour that ‘the majority of the Cabinet’ had become ‘urban’.

‘On the train to Taunton the other day I’ve had people saying to me, and indeed one of my own relatives, ”I wish I hadn’t done it, I wish I hadn’t voted Labour”.

• Read the full story by our deputy political editor David Wilcock here

Sir Keir Starmer was branded ‘cowardly’ as he dodged scores of farmers protesting in drizzle and cold outside a venue for a a Welsh Labour conference about his Government’s Budget.

The Prime Minister told the Welsh Labour conference at Llandudno’s Venue Cymru he would defend the Budget ‘all day long’ as farmers protested against inheritance tax changes.

In his first address as Prime Minister to the conference this morning, Sir Keir praised the election of 27 MPs in July, making Wales a ‘Tory-free zone’.

As he spoke, farmers unhappy with the changes to inheritance tax unveiled in Rachel Reeves’ first Budget gathered with tractors outside the conference venue in protest.

His convoy left the venue through a back gate, with a police escort, to boos from a small number of demonstrators.

• Read Robert Folker’s full story here and see below pictures of the protest in Llandudno

Farmers have reacted with anger and dismay over the inheritance tax changes for farming businesses, which limit the 100 per cent relief for farms to only the first £1million of combined agricultural and business property.

For anything above that, landowners will pay a 20 per cent tax rate, rather than the standard 40 per cent rate of inheritance tax (IHT) applied to other land and property.

Rural Labour MPs have suggested the level of anger is lower than claimed.

Several told MailOnline that all the farmers who contacted them about the change had subsequently discovered they were not liable to pay IHT.

Treasury data shows that around three-quarters of farmers will pay nothing in inheritance tax as a result of the controversial changes.

However, others have challenged the figures, pointing instead to data from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which suggests 66 per cent of farm businesses are worth more than the £1 million threshold at which inheritance tax will now need to be paid.

Jeremy Clarkson accused Labour of wanting to ‘ethnically cleanse’ the countryside in order to build ‘new immigrant towns’ over farmland.

The former Top Gear presenter, 64, made the accusation in a furious no-holds-barred rant at Rachel Reeves over the Chancellor’s inheritance tax raid.

Clarkson says the Budget makes farming ‘nigh on impossible’ and believes it’s part of a ‘sinister plan’ to ‘carpet bomb our farmland’.

He has vowed he will be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with farmers when they take to the streets of London on November 19 for a ‘we only want to feed you’ protest march.

Writing in The Sun earlier this month, he said it will be ok for the Labour Party as they will be ‘living on a diet of quinoa’, as he added: ‘I’m becoming more and more convinced that Starmer and Reeves have a sinister plan. They want to carpet bomb our farmland with new towns for immigrants and net zero windfarms.

‘But before they can do that, they have to ethnically cleanse the countryside of farmers.’

• Read the full story by Matt Strudwick here

Farmers gathering for today’s mass protest in London warned that ‘things will get bad very fast’ if the government refuses to scrap plans for inheritance tax on farms.

Thousands are set to descend on Westminster to vent their anger over what has been called the ‘family farm death tax’ introduced in last month’s Budget.

Fuming Clarkson, 64, is currently recovering from a life-saving heart operation and was ordered not to go on the march by his doctors and to ‘avoid stress’.

Despite this he – joined by co-star Kaleb Cooper – will lead ‘two coaches of farmers’ from Diddly Squat to demonstrate on the ‘hugely important issue’.

Farmers across the country are uniting in action against the Government to try and overturn the so-called ‘Family Farm Tax’ introduced by Labour.

Two events are taking place in the capital today, a mass lobbying event organised by the National Farmers Union and a rally spearheaded by independent farmers.

Farmers belonging to the NFU and those that aren’t members are backing both events and say they are working in co-ordination with one another.

Here’s two farmers explaining why they have joined forces today:

The National Farmers Union is hosting a ‘mass lobbying event’ with MPs in response to Rachel Reeves revoking farmland’s exemption from inheritance tax (IHT).

From April 2026, it will be levied at an effective rate of 20 per cent on the value of business and agricultural assets over £1million in a shake up of Agricultural Property Relief (APR).

The move has sparked fury and warnings that it could kill off family farms, damage food security and set back environmental protection work.

Farmers had threatened to attend today’s demo with their tractors and other large machinery, which could grind the capital to a halt.

But the Chancellor and No10 have defended the change, saying little more than a quarter of farms will be affected, and even then they will pay at half the regular 40 per cent IHT rate.

Farmers last demonstrated in London in March over food security fears.

Hello and welcome to MailOnline’s live coverage as farmers march to Westminster to protest against tax changes introduced by Labour in Rachel Reeves’ first Budget as Chancellor.

Early estimates suggest between 10,000 and 40,000 could descend on the capital today amid growing anger across the countryside with farmers claiming they have been ‘betrayed’ by Sir Keir Starmer.

It comes after Chancellor Rachel Reeves introduced IHT on all previously exempt farms worth over £1m, at a rate of 20 per cent, in her autumn Budget.

Farmers fear the change will prevent them passing their assets down through the generations as they will be forced to sell off parts of their businesses to pay the punishing death duties.

Jeremy Clarkson is expected to feature at some point as farmers meet MPs in a ‘mass lobbying event’ organised by the National Farmers’ Union before a wider street protest.

Stick with us as we bring you the latest developments throughout the day plus the most striking pictures, video and social media reaction.