The countryside must stand together against the family farm tax

Writing for the Shooting Times, Tim Bonner reflects on the government's policies announced within the Budget.

I happened to be shooting on budget day. The weather and the pheasants tried hard to lift the sense of foreboding amongst my fellow guns, who were mostly East Anglian farmers, but the news filtering through from Westminster did not raise spirits. The government’s decision to introduce inheritance tax on agricultural land caused despondency in the gun bus which was subsequently mirrored in the countryside as a whole. That despondency has started to turn to anger as the government has thus far been unwilling to accept that its policy does not deliver its commitment to protect family farms.

This is not just a bad policy, it is also bad politics. At one stroke Labour has undone all that work that it had done in opposition to heal its rift with the countryside. The family farm remains the backbone of rural communities and they are also central to the public vision of the British countryside. It seemed, from the careful courting of the industry by Keir Starmer and his colleagues, that the Labour Party had grasped the political importance of farming and the countryside. However, last week’s budget hit many farming businesses like a hammer blow and farmers have reacted with real anger, not least because of the repeated commitments Labour had made, both in opposition and in government, that it would not change inheritance tax reliefs. This was compounded by the suggestion that farmers should have planned for something which the government had very specifically said it was not going to do. All over the country there are old men and women sitting in farmhouses absolutely terrified that their death will see the end of generations of their family farming their land.

The Chancellor’s decision, however, will have political implications far beyond the farmhouse. Somewhere under 500,000 people work in agriculture in the UK with around two thirds of those being farmers, business partners, directors or spouses. Spread around hundreds of parliamentary constituencies there is an argument that this cohort is electorally insignificant, especially as there may be an assumption amongst Labour strategist that the majority are not their natural supporters. That, however, would be to misunderstand the totemic status of farming, the countryside and especially family farms amongst a much wider proportion of voters.

In the same way that there are not many more than 10,000 fishermen in the UK, yet they had a seismic impact on the Brexit referendum the future of family farms could have a significant effect on the government’s standing with a much wider part of the electorate. The simple ambition of family farmers to pass on their farm to the next generation in the same or better condition than they inherited it is something that everyone will understand whether they live in town or country. The countryside is central to people’s understanding of Britishness and a threat to the family farms which make up so much of the countryside is therefore a threat to us all. The idea that those farms might have to be sold off to meet the demands of the treasury (and the most likely buyers in many cases will be investors and large farming businesses) is politically toxic. Indeed, polling shows that even Labour voters oppose the policy.

The fight over inheritance tax looks like being a long one and if there is a silver lining it is that at least the government will be very careful about introducing other policies that could be presented as an attack on the countryside. It has outstanding manifesto commitments to ban snares and hike firearms licence fees, whilst there are also some MPs who are keen to get stuck into gun control, licensing of game shooting and restrictions on wildlife management. Farmers deserve our support in the fight for their livelihoods, but as ever an attack on one part of the countryside should be treated as an attack on all. Nobody just farms, or shoots, or hunts, or stalks, or drinks in their local pub, or uses their village post office. The countryside is a jigsaw. Take one piece away and it does not work. That is why we are always stronger together and I am quite sure that Shooting Times readers (if they are not farmers themselves) will be demonstrating their support for the farming community.