THERE is a deep sense of consternation in the air of the British countryside, writes Pembrokeshire County Councillor Aled Thomas, who is Wales Chair of the Conservative Rural Forum.
Farmers and rural communities across the UK are rightly outraged by the chancellor’s disastrous Autumn Budget. Not only was it an attack on family farms forged through generations of hard work, but it was also a reminder that Labour candidates would say anything (or, in some cases, not say anything) to get themselves into power.
Indeed, I remember sitting in a farming community hustings in my home farm’s constituency of Mid and South Pembrokeshire where the Labour candidate – now MP – Henry Tufnell said that Labour would categorically not change Agricultural Property Relief, and any suggestion otherwise was scaremongering from the Conservatives.
Similar claims were also made by the Labour candidate in Ceredigion Preseli. Still, they were overshadowed by her blunt comments and unwillingness to speak out against Welsh Labour’s inability to follow scientific evidence to decrease Bovine TB in Wales.
However, the irony that Henry Tufnell MP himself comes from the large Calmsden Estate, which is reported to include 2,000 acres and 16 dwellings in the Cotswolds, is certainly not lost on me.
The introduction of the spiteful family farm tax was just one attack on farmers. The budget document contained more nasty surprises, hidden in the hopes that no one would see them.
Amongst them were taxes on pick-up trucks that farmers rely on to do their day-to-day tasks and taxes on fertilisers, which will inevitably hamper food production. All of this notwithstanding the tax rise in NICs payments for those farms that do provide work opportunities for rural communities, particularly young farmers.
With Labour doubling down on their claim that they haven’t raised taxes on “Working People”, one can only assume that this government doesn’t believe that farmers work at all to put high-quality food on British tables – a mistake they will quickly come to regret.
In fact, even their own voters aren’t particularly supportive of this policy change. Exclusive polling from More in Common for the Conservative Rural Forum shows a higher proportion of Labour voters disagreeing with taxing family farms than those who agree, at 45% to 41%. This is a stark difference from Conservative voters, where 76% disagree with taxing farmers. In comparison, only 16% agree that farmers should pay more tax.
Overall, the poll of 2,007 voters showed nearly 6 in 10 agreed that Rachel Reeves’ tax grab was the wrong decision, while just 2 in 10 believed it was correct.
This government will soon learn the meaning of the old adage: “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” But as someone who has grown up in rural Wales, where Labour has controlled agriculture policy for a quarter of a century, I’m surprised they haven’t learnt their lesson already from the last time they turned against farmers and ended up pulling an embarrassing U-turn.
Welsh Labour’s ideological decision to cover 10% of Wales in trees sparked uproar across farming communities in Wales. Farming unions said that the policy would cut 5,500 jobs from agricultural industries and hit already tight farm business incomes by £199 million.
An analysis by the then DEFRA secretary, Steve Barclay, showed that if the same policy were introduced in England, it would mean the closure of 20,000 English farms.
In a show of strength, as I have never seen before in my lifetime, farmers donned their finest John Deere overalls, slipped on a pair of Dunlop boots from the local farm stores (take note, Steve Reed) and headed in their tractors for Cardiff Bay, where Labour Senedd Members refused to leave the building and address farmers concerns to their face. At the same time, Conservative and Plaid Cymru members spoke passionately to the crowds.
Needless to say, Welsh farmers stood up for their communities and ruled the day, resulting in the withdrawal of the Sustainable Farming Scheme policy from being implemented soon.
The protest on November 19th in Westminster will be one to watch. As the air horns, orange flashing lights and huge tractor tyres make their way down Whitehall, Labour will be left wondering why they decided to pick on rural pensioners and the poorly paid farmers they rely on to feed them 3 times a day.
This government chose to sow seeds of division across the UK, but its failure to understand the core fabric of what runs our rural British economy, coupled with its underestimation of the community resilience within farming, will result in total crop failure for its party’s future re-election prospects.
