Wear wellies to school to support farmers?

[GrumpyDullard]

My DC's school sent out a message this afternoon to say all kids should wear wellies to school tomorrow to support British farmers. I googled it and found out it's a campaign to oppose the removal of the inheritance tax exemption from agricultural land.
We're a rural community so a lot of parents will support the campaign, which is fair enough, but it seems wrong to force everyone's kids to take part in a protest against the government without even explaining what it's about. I'm afraid my DC will stand out if they're not in wellies, but I don't want to take part in this.

Having done some investigation, the majority of small farmers won't be affected by the changes

Just the ones with kids in private schools - so I would suggest the welly wearing should be reserved for private schools only

It's also closing a loophole for very wealthy people to randomly buy farm land to avoid inheritance tax (apparently, relative who works in tax was rambling on this the other day but there really is nothing exciting about tax).

Did you pick your username because you're on meth?

I'm not white.

You should email the head and ask exactly how small children wearing wellies achieves anything for the farmers? What claptrap .
I get you don't want your children to stick out but this is nonsense . You do what's right to you

It is virtue signalling, and achieves sweet fuck all.

@crackofdoom yes, fully agree.

We have the same OP, “inviting children to come to school wearing wellies to support our local farmers”. I am not happy about it, and have been wondering about emailing the head. Seems a bit late now, but I didn’t have time to give it any thought before tonight! If this were on “farmers day” or something as a general supportive thing it would be fine, but it’s not, it’s specifically on the day that farmers are holding protests against government policy and I don’t think it’s right for schools to get involved in direct political protests.

Well done on e-mailing the HT @GrumpyDullard

Schools should not be promoting any political campaigns, let alone doing it without even telling families that is what they are doing.

@glasses5432 exactly. Why is James Dyson buying up land in Lincolnshire, to the point that he now owns more land than the King?

https://whoownsengland.org/2017/09/19/why-is-james-dyson-hoovering-up-land/

Unbelievable. I hope the teachers who came up with this stupid idea didn't vote Labour. I would raise it with the governors because this kind of indoctrination really isn't acceptable. I'm against the IHT increase by the way.

It's anything above £1 million. That's basically one or two farm buildings and a bit of land. It's not cash.

It also includes the value of livestock and farm machinery etc. It isn’t just real estate.

Someone earning £50000 net (so a fairly "good" salary as we are always told on Mumsnet) would have to work and save every single penny of it for 20 years to save £1m

It's a life changing amount of assets for someone to inherit and we need to stop pretending it isn't.

You really have no idea do you? Most farmers are only rich in land and earn very average wages. A new combine harvester can cost £250,000. They will be forced to sell off parcels of land to pay IT and ultimately farming in the UK will not be sustainable.

I have been listening to the radio all day about and even the national unions of farmer that have a magazine the journalist from there was actually saying that it’s not going to hit as many farmers that think they’re going to be hit by it.
this particular journalist even said that people are being whipped up into a frenzy because there’s misinformation and disinformation I believe it isn’t just about this. I noticed that since 2016 because of Brexit farmers are having a bad time trying to export goods and things like that so did they come onto the streets then? How come the conservatives are trying to make political point here when they have not been a friend of the farmer either.
Also, I also found out that some far right groups are going to attach themselves to the protest tomorrow because they’re trying to claim that the land is the reason why labour is doing this so they can convert the places for asylum seekers

Absolute bollocks 😂

I have listened to experts all day on the radio and majority of farms etc won’t be hit by it and if they are it’s not as much as they think. The journalist from the farmers magazine whatever it’s called said this

Good post.
OP do what you want to do or what your kids want to do.
Just tell them what’s going on and ask them

The farmhouse is included but as with most residential property the first £325,000 isn’t. The rest is though.
Most farmhouses are tied to the land

My children don’t take part in any political campaigns such as this. Although only one left in primary now, he won’t be wearing wellies and not just bevahse we don’t own any wellies but we encourage him to think for himself. Politics has no place in schools.

Sorry to sound mean, but the fact that 60% of farmers in the UK supported Brexit (which has made life more difficult for probably 95% of farmers) suggests to me that a lot of farmers have a tendency to support/not support political stuff based primarily on feels, vibes, emotions and prejudice. Rather than by looking carefully at the policy and looking carefully at their farm and its management and making sensible, rational choices. So I'm afraid I'm rather unmoved by the lates bout of hysteria from (some of) the farmers.

The discussion I have seen suggest that most farms will be completely unaffected, those who "could" be affected can largely avoid it by taking good tax advice, and that the current situation is resulting in multimillionaires buying land as a IHT dodge which then pushes up the price of farmland for farmers in general, esp young farmers.

And why aren't people angry about this?

Who organised this?

We're on a cost of living crisis. Why shouldn't ruch farmers pay their taxes like everyone else. Taxes that pay for the NHS, education etc etc.