Thousands of farmers travelled to London on November 19 to protest the new government’s first budget and its imposition of new inheritance tax rules. Nearly a month later, on December 12, there was another protest, this time with more tractors, fewer celebrities, and only a tiny fraction of the media coverage. Similar protests happened in Cardiff, Felixstowe, York, Exeter, Derbyshire and many other places.
Across Europe, radical rightwing and populist groups are targeting rural areas and farmer protests like these. While researching farmer protests in Wales earlier this year I found similar attempts to co-opt the movement. These attempts were largely rejected by the farmers, who instead adopted a “by farmers, for farmers” narrative.
But in the longer term, we can’t take it for granted that the UK’s protests will avoid being co-opted by the radical right, conspiracy theorists and climate change sceptics. If such groups in the UK can tap into farmer dissatisfaction, they could jeopardise plans for the country to reach net zero carbon emissions and broader moves towards sustainable farming.
Agriculture is key to the UK’s transition to net zero. However, the possibility of high job losses (Wales’s sustainable farming scheme would mean fewer livestock and an associated 11% cut in human labour) is at odds with the concept of just transition. In short, a just transition means that workers should not lose out as society moves away from fossil fuels and becomes more sustainable. Should it not be achieved then various other groups will seek to exploit the situation for their own gain.
Beyond the radical right, there have been attempts by groups such as No Farmers, No Food to capitalise on the protests and cast doubt around net-zero transitions. No Farmers, No Food was founded by James Melville, a PR consultant turned anti-lockdown and anti-net zero campaigner, and has described farming as “being sacrificed on the altar of net zero”.
There were minor moments showing this was gaining traction with farmers. For instance, one farmer protest in March was organised in conjunction with an anti-20mph speed limit group, where anti net-zero sentiment and disinformation abounds.
But on the whole, the Welsh farmers largely rejected any non-farmer alliances. Instead, they focused on highlighting the huge financial pressures they currently face.
Changes introduced by the new Labour government mean that many farms will no longer be exempt from inheritance tax. This has seen the financial pressures of farming thrust into the national mainstream media, and a new wave of protests has followed.
All this is happening at a time when farmers and other rural residents already do not trust government in general and this government specifically. Before the UK election this year, Steve Reed, then shadow secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs, assured farmers that Labour had no intention of changing inheritance tax rules. The subsequent reversal (Reed retained the same role when Labour moved into government) will further entrench this sense of mistrust.
The TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson, now a de facto national voice of farming, wasted little time in pivoting these protests towards rightwing conspiracy theories. In the lead up to the first big London protest, he wrote in The Sun that he was “convinced that Starmer and Reeves have a sinister plan. They want to carpet bomb our farmland with new towns for immigrants and net zero windfarms. But before they can do that, they have to ethnically cleanse the countryside of farmers.”
Beyond Clarkson, there are renewed efforts from other groups at co-option. The conspiracy group Together Declaration, of which No Farmers, No Food founder Melville is a member, is attempting to shift the narrative away from inheritance tax changes, to cast doubt around net zero.
Again, there is some sense of farmer resistance to these efforts, with Reform UK leader Nigel Farage being blocked from speaking at the November protest. The farmers behind the big London demos are now putting on an event to discuss changes to inheritance tax and are trying to ally with other affected small businesses rather than more political groups.
There are other overlaps between farming and net zero. For instance the UK’s electricity grid will need upgrading to accommodate the extra demands of a society that has switched fossil fuels for renewable energy. Under Labour’s proposals, this will mean a significant increase in the number of pylons in rural areas.
There is already strong opposition from groups who describe the pylons as a plan to destroy the countryside, and this overlaps with farmers who complain new pylons will disrupt their work. Meanwhile groups such as No Farmers, No Food repeatedly cast farmers as the original environmentalists and protectors of the true British lands.
The National Farmers Union states that the legislated environmental targets for agriculture could be under threat from the inheritance tax changes. Furthermore, the Welsh farmers’ protests seemed to result in a U-turn by the Welsh government.
Given the levels of governmental mistrust within rural and farming communities, this will become a key area of contestation in the coming years. Though UK farmers have for the most part kept the focus solely on agricultural matters, Europe shows that the populist and radical right are having success in targeting these areas. Only a truly fair deal for farmers will stop the threat.
Tom Brookes receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust
