Livelihood ‘at risk of being destroyed’ say farmers ahead of protest in London

Simon Harris went along to the farm in Surrey.
Farmers say government plans for the reintroduction of inheritance tax would make their farms ‘non-viable’.
They are planning a protest on Tuesday near Downing Street with farmers coming from across the country.
The new rules say from April 2026, inherited agricultural assets worth more than one million pounds – which were previously exempt – will be liable to inheritance tax at 20% which is half the normal rate.
The threshold rises to £3 million for husband and wife farmers.
Keith and Nellie are among the farmers worried about the return of these rules.
Keith is the fourth generation of his family to farm the 300 acres in Brockham, Surrey.
They hope to pass the cattle farm over to their children who are nine and 11, but fear these changes may make it impossible.
“It would make this a non viable business,” Nellie explains.
“At the moment it’s viable with the land we have. We need the acreage we have to finish and do the cattles that we are doing and keeping both my husband and I in a job and keeping the countryside looing as it does.
“It’s just putting the news out there to hang us quickly,” she added.
The environment secretary has said that three quarters of farmers will pay nothing following these changes.
Steve Reed added: “Family farming will continue into future generations as it should.”
However, Victoria Atkins, the shadow environment secretary said: “He can explain the veracity and the accuracy of his figures next week when thousands of farmers are coming to Westminster to rally against the family farm tax.”
This protest was originally planned for Trafalgar Square but has since been moved to Richmond Terrace in Whitehall as the campaign gains more and more support.
One of the organisers is Clive Bailey from the Farming Forum.
“We don’t want to cause disruption, the idea is not to bring the capital to a halt French style,” he explains.
“What we’re organising is a non-disruptive demonstration of the human side of this, we’re encouraging farmers and people in rural communities, small businesses affected.
“We may have a tractor or so there symbolically or something like that, we don’t want farmers to come on tractors, this is not that kind of event, the only tractors that will be o this march, we’ve got some children’s on pedal tractors leading from the front because this is them that it affects.”
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