Dozens of tractors have staged a go-slow protest on the roads of Dover calling on the Government to “stop betraying” British farming and rural communities.
Farmers have been driving alongside lorries in the port town bearing signs on tractors including “Stop Substandard Imports” and “No Farmers No Food No Future”.
The action follows outrage from agricultural landowners about the Government’s proposed tax changes, which will see farmers pay inheritance tax on properties and land worth more than £1 million.
Protest organisers Save British Farming and Fairness for Farmers campaign groups said the Labour Government’s Budget was a “hammer blow” to the industry already on its knees and called on ministers to axe inheritance tax, stop substandard imports and scrap carbon tax on fertiliser alongside other measures.
Organiser and Kent beef farmer Matt Cullen said: “It’s time for farmers to stand up and fight back, and it’s time to show the Government that things will escalate more if they don’t sit down and talk to us.”
Save British Farming founder Liz Webster said: “This Government has unleashed a really nasty culture war with their Budget.
“Are they hoping to motivate envy to back destruction (of) our farms which produce healthy and sustainable food and care for our countryside to sign a deal with Trump which delivers chlorinated chicken and hormone-fed beef?”
David Catt, a vegetable grower and wholesaler based in Maidstone, said he was protesting in Dover because of tax measures announced in the Budget being the “final death knell” that will hit family farms that can least afford it.
Farmers take part in a go-slow protest in Dover (Gareth Fuller/PA)
Farmers also protested around the Port of Dover over cheap imports in February.
National Farmers’ Union (NFU) president Tom Bradshaw said the group hopes the Government is in “listening mode” over the situation.
“The NFU isn’t involved in this protest, but it’s an example of how angry and frustrated British farmers and growers are and we entirely understand why people feel the need to make their voices heard,” he said.
“Farmers from across the UK have made their feelings very clear by taking part in our mass lobby and the recent rally in Westminster to ask for change to this abhorrent family farm tax.”