LONDON — With banners, megaphones, toy tractors and an angry message, British farmers will march to Parliament on Tuesday to protest a rise in inheritance tax that they say will deal a “hammer blow” to family farms in difficulty.

British farmers are rarely as militant as their European neighbors, and Britain has not seen large-scale protests like those that have stormed cities in France and other European countries. But today, farmers say they will step up their action if the government does not listen to them.

“Everyone is angry,” said Olly Harrison, co-organizer of a protest to flood the street outside Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office with farmers. He said many farmers “want to take to the streets, block the roads and adopt full French.”

Organizers urged protesters not to bring agricultural machinery into central London on Tuesday. Instead, children on toy tractors will lead a march around Parliament Square after a rally delivered by speakers including former “Top Gear” TV host and celebrity farmer Jeremy Clarkson. Another 1,800 farmers plan to stage a “mass lobby” of nearby lawmakers, organized by the National Farmers Union.

Unstable weather conditions exacerbated by climate change, global instability and the upheaval caused by Britain’s departure from the European Union in 2020 have added to the burden on British farmers. Many believe the Labor government’s tax change, part of an effort to raise billions of pounds to fund public services, is the final straw.

“Four out of the last five years we’ve lost money,” said Harrison, who grows grain on his family farm near Liverpool, in northwest England. “The only thing that keeps me going is doing it for my children. And maybe a little appreciation of the land allows you to keep borrowing, to keep going. But now it has disappeared overnight.

The flashpoint is the government’s decision in its budget last month to scrap a tax break dating back to the 1990s that exempts agricultural properties from inheritance tax. From April 2026, farms worth more than £1 million ($1.3 million) will be subject to a 20% tax on the death of the owner and will be passed on to the next generation. This is half the 40% inheritance tax rate levied on other land and properties in the UK.

Starmer’s centre-left government says the “vast majority” of farms – around 75% – will be unaffected, and various loopholes mean a farming couple can pass down an estate worth their children to their children. of up to 3 million pounds ($3.9 million). tax free.

Supporters of the tax say it will recapture money from the wealthy who purchased farmland as an investment, thereby increasing the cost of farmland.

“It has become the most effective way for the super-rich to avoid paying inheritance tax,” Environment Secretary Steve Reed wrote in the Daily Telegraph, adding that high land prices were “disenfranchising young farmers dream of owning their own farm.

But the farmers’ union says more than 60% of working farms could face a tax cut. And even if farms are worth a lot on paper, the profits are often small. Government figures show that income for most types of farming fell in the year to the end of February 2024, in some cases by more than 70%. Average farm income ranged from about 17,000 pounds ($21,000) for pasture-raised livestock farms to 143,000 pounds ($180,000) for specialist poultry farms.

The last decade has been turbulent for British farmers. Many farmers have backed Brexit as an opportunity to exit the EU’s complex and much-criticized Common Agricultural Policy. Since then, the UK has introduced changes such as paying farmers to restore nature and promote biodiversity, as well as to produce food.

Some farmers have welcomed the measures, but many believe their goodwill has been squandered by missteps by successive governments, the failure of subsidies to keep up with inflation and new trade deals with countries like Australia and New Zealand which opened the door to cheap imports.

National Farmers Union vice-president David Exwood said the tax hike was “the last straw in a succession of difficult choices and difficult situations that farmers have had to face “.

The government has “completely destroyed its trust in the industry”, he said.

The government insists it will not reconsider inheritance taxes, and its political opponents see this as an opportunity. The main opposition Conservative Party – which was in government for 14 years until July – and the far-right populist Reform UK both defend farmers. Some far-right groups also supported Tuesday’s protest, even though the organizers are not affiliated with them.

Harrison says the protest is “a show of unity with the government” and an attempt to inform the public “that farmers are food producers, not tax-dodging millionaires.”

“It’s across all sectors, whether you own land or rent, whether you produce beef, dairy, milk, grains, vegetables, lettuce – you name it, everyone has received a big blow because of this,” he said.

“Every farmer loses. »