To support UK Farmers

[TheHateIsNotGood]

And due to KS's inability to face them in Wales today they are now thinking of going on strike. Because the govt are being too stubborn to reconsider how they apply IHT on working family farms. By all means close the loophole that allows the 'landed gentry' to take advantage of the agricultural exception but not with so blunt an instrument.

I was hoping to add a post to an existing thread but there isn't one despite it being headline news today.

Yes, it seems there should be various ways of ensuring that people who've bought land as a form of tax avoidance would not benefit, while working farms/farmers would be protected.

What Labour are doing will still impact you. And everyone through lower food security and other policies will too

Honestly…I don’t understand enough about it to fully “support” one side or the other. One side says it affects 500 farms, one says it affects 70,000 farms. Both are likely wrong so the reality is in the middle. I don’t have the energy to figure it out. The more obvious conclusion to draw is if it only affects 500 farms how is it going to draw the funds they’re saying it will.

The wider issue is more that the country is so broken that the change in government has little chance of healing anything in the short term.

Townie no, small holder yes. Not totally self sufficient, nor farmers, but with 100 animals to care for. Breeding programmes, growing crops for ourselves, family and friends. I suppose we do have a foot in both camps.

The mixed woodland is managed here. Where do you think logs come from? Who do you suppose keeps the tracks and footpaths clear?

Regardless of your personal position on whether tax reliefs should be given to farmers or not, this is a big set of changes that has taken the industry by surprise. The government did not consult with the industry or its union about these changes.

The government accepts that this is an industry already under stress and it has decided to put it under more stress. The government either doesn't know, doesn't care or doesn't want to tell us what impact this is going to have on food production in this country, an issue which affects every single one of us, not to mention individual farmers and their communities up and down the country. I find that totally batshit.

I am surprised the farmers haven't turned on Jeremy Clarkson who is one of the people who highlighted the fact that some people were buying up farms to deliberately avoid inheritance tax.
He then slags off the BBC which was where most of this money came from until he left under a cloud (something about punching an assistant in the face for not bringing him the right food or am I misremembering)

Why would we turn on him. His TV programme highlighted the difficulties in farming. It’s the media who are focusing on him because he’s controversial.

Yes. It's symptomatic of wider and deeper problems.

He is one of those making it worse buying up land and therefore putting up prices. He makes his money from TV and doesn't actually give a sh*t about the farmers as he is a self publicist. Same with Dyson who is also a pretend farmer

@derxa because his admission of buying land to shelter from tax liability isn't a good look.

Clarkson is not a good spokesperson. He is on record as buying the farm to avoid inheritance tax. The very rich farmers who are the only ones affected drive up the prices of land which in turn pushes uo thr price of basic food stuff and housing land. Im in supoort of the government on this.

If farmers go on strike - e.g stop supplying/selling food for a week how screwed will we be?

From the pp doing Labour's work for them by uploading party screenshots it looks like Labour will dig in and not change.

Farmers are clearly impacted more than Labour have worked out and will continue on this

Dyson isn’t a pretend farmer. He runs a massive profitable farming business. Have a look his website.

Isn’t it? You clearly have a very rigid idea of what a farmer is. We are not a great homogenous lump.

@derxa not at all! I live in rural Cornwall. I know organic farmers (well, one), big 'gentry' type farmers who own many many farm properties and easily afford to send multiple children to private school. And I know several struggling farmers. Livestock and veg crops.
My children mixed with young farmers until they left the county bc they couldn't inherit jobs.

I live literally surrounded by farmland and even rent a single field (which came without house) to a farmer. He's a lovely thoughtful, community minded man who was in London yesterday.

I also know farmers tho who boast of the chemicals they use and the grants they have received for equipment and land stewardship (which they don't carry out).

So I know a very broad cross section of the farming community.

And I have zero sympathy for Clarkson or anyone who aligns themself with the man.

Programming like The Yorkshire Farm, Yorkshire vets, Diddly Squat and more regional ones have opened the eyes of the more critical thinking public. There's many farmers on FB now who are being followed by people interested in rural life.

Farmers and country markets are growing again. Customers aren't bothered by misshapen, non conformist fruit and vegetables unlike the EU who banned their sale because of shape, size.

I don't know how or why the government are alienating pensioners, farmers, employers in such a hurry. Inflation figures released today are 2.5%.

It's a sloppy mess of hurried legislation.

So when things don't go to his liking he will dump the UK farms and set up in Singapore (he has a history of this)

I don’t align myself to Clarkson. He’s just another farmer as far as I’m concerned. I’m amazed at your encyclopaedic knowledge of other people’s financial affairs. I know nothing about the financial doings of my farming neighbours and I’ve known some of them for 50 years.

And? He’s a businessman.

Errrr @derxa I've given zero detail of anyone's financial affairs. I can see when someone is struggling though, especially if they post it on FB. And knowing that someone is sending 4 children to the local private school is hardly inside knowledge!
So I probably have the same broad brush knowledge you have of your neighbours.

Good idea.
That will avoid those using 'farming' as a way to hide money from inheritance as my BIL has done (or thought he has done). It's just a hobby with farm buildings as lets and a way of dodging tax.

Real food production where it continues and not sold for housing after inheritance is different. Although it does seem strange that some super wealthy people don't pay when 'ordinary' people might pay on their main home when passing it on.

And he told the Times in 2021 that avoiding inheritance tax was “the critical thing” in his decision to buy land, which plays very much into the government's justification for the reforms.

(He'd changed his mind yesterday and said that he had bought the land "to shoot".)

Clarkson is a red herring the overwhelming number of farmers aren't TV presenters or business magnates.

There will be enough warning for those with a refrigerator, pantry and cooker to stock up for the duration. It will be difficult for those who must shop daily because they cannot store food. Loads of foreign conglomerates will be willing to step in quickly to feed us more cheaply, if less well.

I agree there should have been a consultation and a phase in period but without suggesting that two wrongs make a right, this is no more high handed than the Tories’ treatment of junior doctors. They serve an equally vital national interest, have precarious mental health, were working at minimum wage, etc. They went on strike, Jeremy Hunt dug in. The NHS didn’t feel a huge impact. We know who won.

Of course food security is vital. So is health security, so is the cybersecurity on which our whole way of life rests and so is
much more that is maintained by moderately paid unsung heroes. I am genuinely ambivalent about IHT for farmers. I would find the tone of this thread more palatable if there were less sense that farmers are somehow uniquely heroic. We. Are. All. In. This. Mess. Together.

And there is nothing punitive about a reminder that Brexit seems to have caused a big part of it. There’s been general agreement either upthread or on the Rachel Reeves thread that Brexit is costing us about £100bn pa. That so far dwarfs this IHT issue for both farmers and small family businesses that if these groups would agree to front a Rejoin campaign - because no politician can - they could name their price.