On Tuesday, 19 November, the Countryside Alliance proudly stood with farmers and their families at the #WeJustWantToFeedYou protest in Westminster. Thousands of people from every corner of the country, including many of our own members, made the journey to London to oppose the government’s tax on family farms in the largest rural protest in the capital since the Alliance’s Liberty and Livelihood march in 2002.
Gathering around a makeshift stage on the side of a lorry parked in the centre of Whitehall, a stone’s throw from Downing Street, the assembled stood for hours in the cold and rain armed with placards. The windows of Whitehall rattled as the huge crowd cheered and holloaed an array of speakers including Jeremy Clarkson, Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey and the new Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch.
Speaking as the only Labour voice present, our President, Baroness Mallalieu, urged her party against ostracising farmers and rural voters, warning "as things stand no political party in this country can win a working majority without rural seats”.
The protest was aimed at the Prime Minister and Chancellor. They were the ones who targeted farmers in the budget and they are the people who have the power to reconsider how they implement their policy so as not to destroy the family farms they vowed to protect.
Should they refuse to budge, and the government’s message in the wake of the protest is not encouraging, then this debacle will simply run on and on, derailing the government's communications grid with a further barrage of difficult headlines. Much like in the 2000s, pop up protests across the countryside will become common place and for those who face the breakup of farms which have been in the same families for generations, increasingly radical protest may become the only logical response.
If Rachel Reeves and her team in the Treasury won’t listen to rural people on the ground, it is their own rural Labour MPs that hold the only realistic chance of our concerns being noticed. With much smaller majorities than their urban counterparts, many will undoubtedly feel they’ve been thrown under the bus, being completely blindsided by the budget announcement in the same way that farming bodies and seemingly DEFRA have been.
Thousands of our members and supporters have already used our e-lobby to contact their MPs, helping us reach MPs in over 590 constituencies. We know this operation is making an impact, with the Guardian reporting that over 100 rural Labour MPs have voiced concern to government over the Treasury’s decision.
As Baroness Mallalieu has made clear in numerous media appearances this week, this is not about the government backing down or having to do a U-turn.
Tackling tax avoidance is the right thing to do, but a Labour government that cares about the countryside must ensure that it also protects the farming families who are the backbone of the countryside.
The government should be doing everything it can to avoid a repeat of the last 14 years, which saw the countryside reject the Labour Party at the ballot box, election after election. It can only do that by listening and demonstrating that it wants to understand rural communities, rather than engaging in a toxic culture war.