'Do farmers' tax protests show Labour's Budget is starting to unravel?' asks Andrew Marr

19 November 2024, 18:05 | Updated: 19 November 2024, 18:17

'Do farmers' tax protests show Labour's Budget is starting to unravel?' asks Andrew Marr

By Andrew Marr

@AndrewMarr9

Sometimes you have to go and see for yourself. There are plenty of political blowhards and a few conspiracy nuts getting in on the farmers' protests.

I think it’s really important to say that when I was there, this was the heart of the countryside in the heart of the city - patient, tough, weather-beaten faces, from Yorkshire, from Wales, from the west country and East Anglia, with home-made protest placards, and their anger still mixed with a robust residual sense of humour.

The protest involved a lot of standing around, in freezing weather, and not a lot of excitement.

"This is exactly what we do all year”, one farmer told me. And, asked about violence, “thing is, we’re not French.”

Talking to the sea of Barbour jackets and flat caps, the new Tory leader Kemi Badenoch told them the inheritance tax change was cruel and unfair; Jeremy Clarkson off the telly begged the Treasury to think again.

Read more: Jeremy Clarkson tells government to 'back down' over inheritance tax changes at farmer's protest

Read more: Farming couple who drove 150 miles with baby to join Westminster protests left stranded after truck stolen from hotel

Now then. After 14 years of deterioration and cuts to the public services farming families also use, this Labour government had to raise taxes to repair and rebuild. The money had to come from someone.

And the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, was boxed in by the promises made during the summer election. So I have a lot of sympathy with the government; there were no good choices.

Meanwhile, the more this becomes party political, the less likelihood there is of a U-turn - it becomes about face, authority, political pride. I know all that.

But we know the Treasury doesn’t always get its numbers, and the impact of them, right.

And looking at what farmers say is the effect on some relatively modest family businesses, making tiny profits, I’m beginning to ask whether this Budget is starting to unravel and whether second thoughts might not be wiser thoughts.