LONDON — For four generations, Judith Jacobs’ family has defied British farming convention by voting Labour — a party that has traditionally struggled to win rural areas.
At July’s general election, many other farmers — feeling betrayed by the then-Conservative government’s failed promises on Brexit and “unfair” trade deals — followed suit, helping Labour Leader Keir Starmer secure a mega majority in the House of Commons.
Never again, said Jacobs, who runs a 600-acre arable and livestock farm in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. The seeds her farm produces are used to supply Colman’s Mustard, a quintessentially English brand.
She is one of thousands of farmers who say they bitterly regret their choice at the election — and now many are preparing to descend on Westminster Tuesday to protest budget measures which among other shakeups changed inheritance tax rules.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves infuriated farmers when she used her first fiscal event last month to announce changes to reliefs for family-owned farms.
From April 2026, farms worth more than £1 million will be liable for 20 percent inheritance tax — though ministers argue that, subject to individual circumstances, farms worth as much as £3 million will still be able to be passed on tax-free once remaining reliefs are taken into account.
The changes, the government said, are necessary to plug the “£22 billion fiscal hole” they inherited from the previous Conservative government and close a loophole exploited by some of the wealthiest estates.
But the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) said the changes would force many hard-working farming families like the Jacobs to break up their land.
‘Severely let down’
“My dad will be turning in his grave because he was a firm Labour supporter,” Jacobs said, barely holding back tears. “He was all for the people — the hard-working people — and his dad before him. Now I feel severely let down because Labour is not working for the people that it needs to work for.”
Jacobs and her late husband bought their own farm with a hefty mortgage in 2002. Following his death earlier this year, 50 percent of the farm will go to their four children, all of whom help out with the family business. Jacobs had hoped to one day pass on her half of the farm to her children, too — including her son Rob, currently an engineer who plans to return home to continue the family tradition.
But with the prospect of an inheritance tax bill in the hundreds of thousands, the family is seriously concerned that this may no longer be a viable option.
“Is it sensible for my son to give up his job, to come home to farm for very little remuneration, in an industry that’s not valued a bit by the government?” Jacobs said.
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Rob said the only way the farm would be able to keep going was if the family “cut costs somewhere else, which would probably mean stopping investing in improvements to machinery and buildings or modernization. You can get around it in the short term, but what long-term impact will this have? Are you going to end up falling behind?”
‘The last generation’
The prospect of her family leaving the profession makes Jacobs feel “desperately sad.” “I may well be the last generation [of farmers.] My children may not carry on in my footsteps much longer,” she said.
For now, the government is standing firm. Now the prime minister, Starmer this weekend told the Welsh Labour conference he would “defend our decisions in the budget all day long,” after being greeted by a convoy of tractors and angry farmers.
“I will defend facing up to the harsh light of fiscal reality,” he said. “I will defend the tough decisions that would be necessary to stabilize our economy and I will defend protecting the pay slips of working people, fixing the foundations of our economy and investing in the future of Britain and the future of Wales, finally turning the page on austerity once and for all.”
But he will undoubtedly be coming under increasing pressure from MPs in his own party, which thanks to its landslide victory in July, is representing a number of rural seats for the first time in years.
Just over a year ago, Jacobs was among the farmers who cheered at the NFU’s annual conference in Birmingham as Starmer promised that if he won the election, he would introduce a “new relationship with the countryside and farming communities” based on “respect and genuine partnership.”
Looking back, Jacobs said she felt “betrayed.”
“I don’t think the government appreciates the value of a farm and how it isn’t monetary,” she said.
“The average profit of a farm for the past 20 years [has] ranged between minus two percent and two percent. Most businesses wouldn’t carry on. But it’s a way of life. We’re all passionate for very little return. Why persecute us hard-working people who pay our taxes and support the whole economy?”
David Exwood, deputy president of the NFU, warned that the changes were the “final straw for so many farmers after some really difficult years.” A recent survey suggested that farmers’ confidence was at an all-time low, exasperated by challenging weather and cuts to government subsidies. “They’ve had enough,” he said.
NFU president Tom Bradshaw is particularly concerned about the impact on the elderly generation of farmers, who have been left with little time to plan for the changes.
“It’s simply wrong,” he said, pointing out that many older farmers rely on drawing value from their farms later in life in lieu of pension savings.
“Any spare money has been reinvested in the farm to deliver for food production. Now that money is going to be spent [not only] on saving for a pension but also life insurance to protect the farm for the future,” he said.
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Food security fears
As well as the impact on individual families such as the Jacobs, the inheritance tax hike may also affect British consumers through higher food prices in the shops, critics say.
And it’s not just the inheritance tax changes that worry farmers. Many are also concerned about the impact on their incomes of increases to employers’ national insurance contributions and the minimum wage.
Tax measures that will see double cab pick-up trucks treated as company cars are also due to hit farmers, and there are fears that plans to introduce a carbon tax on imports from 2027 would drive up the cost of fertilizer.
Jacobs currently employs 35 full and part-time staff on her farm, as well as her farm shop, excluding members of her own family.
“We employ a lot of young people so the increase in living wage and national insurance are going to impact us enormously,” she said. “But we want to stay open as a business. We will just have to pass on the uplift to the consumer. So they are only going to have to pay more money for what we do — otherwise we’ll close, too.”
Descending on Westminster
Rob, the engineer, and his siblings will be among 1,800 NFU members expected to attend a mass lobby of MPs in Westminster Tuesday, with thousands more farmers expected to take part in a demonstration outside parliament attended by television presenter-turned-farmer Jeremy Clarkson.
Olly Harrison, a farmer who helped organize the demonstration, said it would be led by children on toy tractors to highlight the generational impact of the inheritance tax changes.
But he insisted that they won’t be going “full French,” a reference to recent in Europe protests against trade agreements seen as harming farmers, which saw roads blocked with tractors and manure sprayed at police.
“It won’t be like that because we can’t do that and get public support until the public actually knows why we are angry,” he said.
The Treasury has insisted that almost three-quarters of farmers would end up paying no more inheritance tax under the new system than they would have pre-budget.
In a joint statement issued ahead of the demonstration, Reeves and Environment Secretary Steve Reed said the reforms would ensure that “wealthier estates and the most valuable farms pay their fair share to invest in our schools and health services that farmers and families in rural communities rely on.”
They added: “We are steadfast in our commitment to Britain’s farming industry because food security is national security … But with public services crumbling and a £22 billion fiscal hole that this government inherited, we have taken difficult decisions.”
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Tax Justice UK, which campaigns for a fairer tax system, has defended the government’s plans, saying of the current inheritance regime which sees family farms taxed at a lower rate: “many super rich families — with no real connection to farming — are increasingly buying farmland in order to exploit this loophole.” Critics have pointed to wealthy individuals including vacuum-cleaner magnate James Dyson, who is reported to own 36,000 acres of farmland.
But this narrative is contested by the NFU, which says the environment department’s own figures show up to two-thirds of farms could be hit, (a claim the government in turn rejects.)
“It [the tax change] brings most farms and food production in scope in a way that goes way beyond just targeting wealthy landowners,” said Exwood. “They have no idea what they’ve done and the damage this is going to cause. It’s anti-investment, anti-growth, and it’s going to undermine confidence in the industry.”
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has voiced her support for those demonstrating today, branding the changes a “cruel tax hike.”
“Under my leadership the Conservative Party will staunchly oppose the family farm tax, which threatens our vital rural economy and our food security, with increased costs and a greater reliance on imports,” she said in a statement ahead of the march.
Bradshaw said he hoped ministers would U-turn on the changes after seeing the strength of opposition. He predicted farmers would turn out in their thousands.
“I don’t want an abrasive relationship with the government,” he said. “This should be about delivering the food security that was in their manifesto. Instead, we’ve ended up having an argument about a relatively small amount of money within the budget on a policy they said they weren’t going to change.”
He added: “Farming has nothing left to give. We’ve been bled dry, and we cannot absorb any of these cost increases.”