⚡💥Peter Gadd💥⚡

Nearly two years ago, Labour broke its election promise to rural communities and made family farms and family businesses its first target, introducing the family farm and family business taxes to fund benefits for others. It was the start of a pernicious attack on the rural way of life. Tens of thousands left the countryside to protest outside No10 against these death taxes, which threatened farms and businesses that had survived for generations. The Conservatives stood with farmers. We protested, proved Labour’s costings wrong, shared the heartbreaking stories of affected families, and forced vote after vote in the Commons. Our collective effort produced one of the most humiliating u-turns of Keir Starmer’s leadership. Labour slipped it out the day before Christmas Eve, hoping nobody would notice, and raised the threshold. Farmers and the Conservatives noticed, and made clear it did not go nearly far enough. Since then, more than nine in ten farmers have halted investment, and 87% say their profits have been significantly hit. The government is already presiding over record farm closures. Last week, the Conservatives forced the eighth vote on these taxes. Labour MPs again failed the countryside by voting to keep them. But with the Budget less than ten days away, there is still time for the new Prime Minister to deliver on his promise to “build back trust” with farming communities. Number 10 insiders suggest the tax could be abolished or watered down. If true, it would be a huge admission that the government got this policy wrong. Farming families will neither forgive nor forget the stress they have endured. But scrapping these taxes would give them certainty for the future of their farms, and lift one burden as they recover from the worst harvest on record while facing higher fuel prices, the jobs tax and the fertiliser tax. This matters to us all. In an increasingly dangerous world, we need farmers to grow the food we eat, not sell up. Enough is enough. Andy Burnham must axe these vindictive taxes in their entirety. If he doesn’t, the @Conservatives will scrap them when we return to government.