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.
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SubscribeFarmers should not have special privileges as food can be Imported and its a less productive sector of tne economy. Far better to offer tax incentives for research into artificial intelligence.
Never mind subsidies to artificial intelligence what about a display of human intelligence from this benighted government taxing anything that makes a profit to subsidise the unprofitable. What is the point of artificial intelligence if the Unions ensure it can’t actually be used to replace unionised workers?
So you have not learned any lessons from covid impact on global supply chain?
It might be war next time.
Food security is one of the major attribute of truly independent state.
Much better to buy food from Russia and China, eh?
So much for food security!
Believe it or not our food security has not been considered of great importance for some years now. Labour has come out into the open in its contempt for farmers but they’ve been under attack for some years.
Kier, Rachel and rest of the gang should be OK.
Surely Lord Ali must own organic farm or two?
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.
Haven’t you heard of the new police unit: the Irony Department, dedicated to rooting out rebels like you.
Actually wind turbines, and even pylons, are a pretty lucrative crop for British farmers.
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.
NO, there is an attack on modern energy-dependent industry, jobs and lifestyle.
I see three factions with shifting alliances. The billionaires, the degrowthers, and the fully automated luxury communists.
You’re seeing things!
You’re doing what a number of people do on here – bundling together groups of people you dislike, and claiming they are in cahoots. And this in spite of how implausible such alliances would be. Their only unity is in your mind, and in the minds of those with similar hatred sets.
The attack has been multi-faceted, that is obvious.
Are the two mutually exclusive? NO.
C’mon man. All the smart people know the economic engine of an enlightened economy comes from NGOs, public service unions and activists. That’s the future!!!
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.
But article claims that nearly hundred additional parliamentary seats won by Labour were rural ones.
So clearly farmers did not follow Labour rural policies if they decided to vote for Labour.
They are, partly, responsible for their own misfortune.
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.
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!
‘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?
Good luck when there’s no food in the shops.
You can buy your food online from China.
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.
So the down voters are in favour of subsidies for dubious causes and inefficient businesses? Or do they think that Labour will sort agriculture out? Or that farmers and landowners should have preferential tax treatment?
Somebody explain please. Are almost all Unherd readers farmers?
The problem is inherent in the economics of food production. As societies become more wealthy, people spend less of their disposable income on food, and there’s a limit to how much food they can eat anyway. So farm income drops relative to everyone else’s, and remains relatively static during inflation.
Secondly, as farming becomes more efficient, it produces more food which, because of supply and demand, pushes prices down. Demand for food is relatively static and increases supply drops the price.
Farms can’t adapt as quickly as businesses because a farm basically just grows stuff, where a business product can be tailored to a changing market in a relatively agile manner.
That’s why subsidies are considered an essential part of food production in societies where living standards are rising.
The alternative is very expensive food, which punishes the poor disproportionately.
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.
A farm worth less than £2M isn’t viable even with the subsidies. Those worth over £2M have just become not worth keeping.
Wrong. Inevitably, despite the rhetoric against Big Business, it’s the smaller ones that suffer disproportionately, resulting in ever-larger Big Businesses. Even Huger Landowners, in your language.
Big Government clearly loves this – now monolith can speak to monolith.
The author makes a valid point about the countryside not necessarily being dominated by those whose livelihoods are tied up with land. An influx of retired metropolitans or mobile working from home types have perhaps had an impact. Typically they are vegetarians in cattle country, enthusiastic distributors of extinction rebellion leaflets, noisy proponents of rewilding. Their only link to the traditional rural society are the beautiful converted barns and mills they inhabit. Their high levels of education and status make them think they basically know better and that they ought to be listened to. Anyway it’s all too depressing on every single front but I still don’t think I’ll go to Dubai…
I like your style.
If you’re going to make an efficient communist state you need to get rid of the kulaks.
I’ve been idly wondering where the gulag will be. The windswept marshes of Lincolnshire? The rocky hilly wastes of the north and west? Empty nightingale hospitals ? The millennium dome? And I’m not sure what they’d have us do since industrial development is no longer part of the plan.
Number 10 seems to be a bit of a jail.
I guess, you are joking.
Not about kulaks but about “efficient communist state”.
There was not, there is not and they will not be such a thing.
Obviously the metric would need some work.
Seriously, does anyone here know anything at all about farming as a family business? It is sweat, tears, frustration and lots of other things too. Nothing to do with Clarkson and hobby farmers. I grew up on a family farm of 350 acres and have lived in farming communities for most of my life. Look at land prices in Lancashire – a prime farming country. Even moderate quality land is £8,000-£10,000 per acre – and that is demand for land by companies not tax avoidance by individuals.
Family farms have to be much larger to provide a reasonable family income. Without transmission within families everything will be owned by corporate investors whose reward is either corporate capital gains via the increase in land values or carbon credits for forestry. The notion that family businesses of any kind can pay IHT out of profits over 10 years is just daft. This ignores the fact that such payments would have to be made out of dividends which are taxed at close to 40%, so the effective tax rate is near to 60%.
The tax system on small businesses is an increasing mess, not only due to changes in APR (agricultural property relief) but because the imposition of taxes on unlisted companies (business property relief), for which valuation is a nightmare, as well as changes to capital gains tax. Effective tax rates across the board are now well over 50%.
the British people love the countryside
Of course we do – but that doesn’t mean we love farmers, or farm practices, or farmers attitudes to other users of the countryside – or feel that we owe them our support over other groups. And for all the complaining they do, there are plenty of farmers who seem to be doing very nicely thank you.
I notice you refer to “users” of the countryside.
Perhaps you might consider the wishes of those people who “live and work” in the countryside.
It’s not a rural theme park.
In a largely urbanised country with relatively limited green spaces – yes, take away the derogatory “theme park”, that is one of the key roles it plays.
And you’ll note that the expression I used was “other users”.
Reeves certainly seems to have caught up with Clarkson’s little game. Giving joy to millions as well as a few pounds more to rebuild the country. Including the countryside.
Wherever there is a right-wing Labour machine, there is a very cosy relationship with property developers. And giant transnational agribusiness is right up this Government’s street both ideologically and venally.
Deliberate drive to force farmers to sell their fields for housing development. This comes on the heels of a change in the rules so that the local authority gets the uplift value rather than the landowner in a CPO situation.
Also selling the farm to avoid ruinous IHT means a CGT massive hit instead so screwed either way.
Labour class war zealots were clearly aiming for the ‘landed gentry’ which were identified after perusing https://www.uklandandfarms.co.uk/rural-properties-for-sale/west-midlands/shropshire/page-1/
Would not most family farms be in family trusts and and thus avoid inheritance tax?
Good question. And the answer??
Trusts are taxed at 6% of their value every 10 years. There’s no big hit when somebody dies, but there is an annual drain that a trust owning an illiquid asset (like a farm) might struggle to pay.