Feeders v leaders: Farmers dig deep for 2025 fight

Battles lines are being drawn in the fight over inheritance tax and farms. Rural affairs correspondent Linsey Smith analyses what 2025 could bring.

"Farmers versus Starmer". It's a catchy phrase.

But the feud between those who feed us and the man who leads us could go beyond words in 2025.

And the biggest battle in that war? The fight against inheritance tax.

From April 2026, inherited farms worth more than £1m will be liable to the tax at 20% – half the usual rate. They were previously exempt.

The government says it wants to make the system fairer and discourage the rich from buying land solely to dodge tax.

But the move has caused uproar in farming communities.

"Rachel Reeves, queen of thieves" – another slogan coined by an angry farm apprentice from Lincolnshire – was hand-painted on to a placard that she carried along Whitehall in protest.

She doesn't own a farm. Her family own very little, she's happy to say. But she fears she'll be out of a job if her boss sells up.

I met a lot of similar people at a rally in York. They don't own a Land Rover. They don't measure wealth in acres. They are not filthy rich.

Some tell me they earn close to minimum wage. But they fear that inheritance tax will break up the countryside as we know it.

• The farm tax row explained
• Thousands of farmers protest against inheritance tax changes
• BBC Verify: how many farms will be affected?

The prime minister has said he understands farmers' concerns and "wants to support" them, but "the vast majority" would be unaffected.

However, not since Tony Blair's New Labour government banned fox hunting in 2005 has the tension between Labour and landowners been so tense.

Some farmers say the root cause is exactly the same: "Townie politicians who don't understand the countryside," as one put it to me.

But the issue at hand is far more important, according to Anna Longthorp, a pig farmer and single mother from East Yorkshire.

"Fox-hunting didn't produce food for the nation," she said. "We are the backbone of this country."

Her feelings are echoed as you drive through the countryside of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. Placards by the roadside, posters on farm gates and signs that linger on tractors from the protests: "No farmers, no food."

And in many a country pub, there are hastily arranged meetings to discuss the same thing: what next?

Don't expect them to back down. They won't.

"We'll go all the way", says Anna, who has helped to arrange the rallies. She is not at the point of threatening withholding food deliveries, but warns: "If needs be, that might be the way that we have to go."

And I know what you are thinking. Will we witness "French-style" protests: blazing hay bales in busy streets, the blocking of motorways, waste being dumped at municipal offices?

I very much doubt it. It's simply not a very "British" thing to do. Farmers are more likely to use food rather than fury.

How are Labour politicians responding to this furore? They say the changes would not affect many farmers (BBC Verify has found about 500 estates per year are likely to be affected). And why shouldn't farmers pay inheritance tax? They are, after all, paying less than others.

Sir Keir has highlighted his childhood growing up in the countryside and says the government will invest in other areas which affect rural communities, such as hospitals, schools and housing.

Over the festive period, inheritance tax has brought discussions of death to dinner tables.

One Lincolnshire family told me that their 91-year-old parents debated the likelihood of living another seven years, so that they could put the farm in trust. Can they hang on?

And what of those who might consider not hanging on? National Farmers' Union (NFU) president Tom Bradshaw broke down in tears when he suggested that some farmers could contemplate suicide to avoid IHT.

He told a committee of MPs that the policy could trigger "the most severe human impact", and some elderly farmers, or those in ill health, "may well decide that they should not be here" by the time the tax comes into force.

Two of the new government's maiden economic policies have occupied most of the headlines since they took power. The scrapping of universal winter fuel allowance and farm tax.

Will 2025 see Sir Keir make a U-turn?

As one farm worker, Richard Sellers, put it: "He should do. Because this will affect everyone in the country, if not. It'll affect you Linsey, what are you doing to do without food?"

Pass me those leftover mince pies.

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