The Labour Government has been warned of strike action and “economic chaos” from British farmers following Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s clampdown on inheritance tax.
Reeves unveiled her plans for the tax in this week’s Budget announcement, which has been branded “disastrous” by the National Farmers’ Union.
NFU President Tom Bradshaw said the Budget “not only threatens family farms but will also make producing food more expensive”.
Speaking to GB News, farmer and director at The Farming Forum, Clive Bailye, suggested that Britons may be forced to “panic buy” food if farmers “withhold produce from leaving their farms” in retaliation to the measures.
Clive Bailye hit out at the inheritance tax ‘liability’ future generation farmers now face following Labour’s Budget
PA / GB News
Bailye warned: “I think at first, farmers were in shock – today you increasingly can see that shock turning to anger. A lot of them are basically saying we need to get more French. We need to start causing chaos.
“Farmers, of all industries, do have it within their power, with the equipment that farmers have and their resourcefulness – they do have the ability to create economic chaos.
“If they start blocking roads or parking tractors or driving them around at rush hour, they can cause an economic crash. They could hold the Government to ransom on this.”
However, Bailye made clear that although many farmers are “angry” at the changes to inheritance tax, they have “no desire to punish or inconvenience the public”.
Farmers could take strike action against Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s Budget announcement
PA
Bailye told GB News: “We don’t want an ambulance not getting to hospital because someone’s being held up by a tractor or a motorway is blocked, so I don’t think you’ll see that.
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“But what is being talked about, the rumour I’m hearing a lot at the moment, and I think beginning to become reality is, they’re talking about potentially strike action, not letting food leave the farm.”
Outlining the impact such a strike could have on the country, Bailye added: “We all know how supply chains work now, how fragile they can be, and I think that could very easily lead to the kind of panic buying that we saw with fuel and we saw with toilet roll and empty shelves.
“I think most people can go longer without toilet roll than they can without food, can’t they?”
Discussing the personal impact that the inheritance tax changes will have on his farm, Bailye admitted he is “incredibly sad” that the decision to pass down his farm to his children has become a “liability”.
Clive Bailye admitted that he is ‘incredibly sad’ about the changes to the inheritance tax put in place by Reeves
GB News
Bailye told GB News: “This is about family farms in general. I can see what this policy is trying to achieve, but this isn’t the correct way to do it.
“Beating up family farms, which is a multi-generational vocational occupation – no family farmer is doing it for the money, but there is very little reason to be a farmer right now.”
He added: “You take away the ability to pass this on, and the idea that you’re going to leave your children with a 20 per cent liability, what’s the point in that? It makes no sense any more.
“It makes me feel incredibly sad. My children may never have wanted to be farmers, but it would have been nice to give them that option, wouldn’t it?”