The public overwhelmingly back farmers in their battle with Labour after Rachel Reeves capped their inheritance tax reliefs, polling by More in Common has found.
Almost six in ten think farms should be exempt from inheritance tax- including almost half of Labour voters- in research that proves Starmer and Reeves may have underestimated the consequences of their tax raid on such a valued part of British society.
Six in ten think farmers should be exempt from inheritance tax
More in Common
“In a focus group on Thursday evening in Scunthorpe, voters couldn’t understand why Labour were ‘going after farmers’,” said More in Common.
Voters of every party including the Greens expressed the same belief, with Conservative voters 75 per cent opposed and Reform close behind on 74.
Asked whether the budget had a positive or negative impact on farmers, 22 per cent answered ‘very negative’ and another 24 per cent ‘somewhat negative’.
Farmers were only beaten by ‘pensioners’ and ‘small businesses’ in who the public saw to be most negatively affected by Reeves’ budget.
Asked which budget measures they support, the poll found subjecting farms to inheritance tax to be the third most unpopular policy, only beaten by subjecting pensions to death duties (41 per cent oppose) and scrapping the £2 bus fare cap (55 per cent).
Subjecting farms to inheritance tax was the third most unpopular measure in Reeves budget
More in Common
More in Common said: “The biggest losers were seen to be farmers, pensioners and small businesses, three groups who despite not tending to be core Labour voters themselves, do attract significant public sympathy and support.”
This damaging polling comes as a petition to ‘overturn the family farm tax’ reached 167,000 signatures today.
Petitions with other 100,000 signatories are generally considered significant and, if logged on the parliament’s website, become eligible for a House of Commons debate.
This one was set up by the National Farming Union and is hosted on a separate webpage, however.
More in Common’s research also revealed more of the public believe the Budget will have a negative impact on them personally (39 per cent) than a positive one (13 per cent). A third think it will make no difference to them either positively or negatively.
Labour voters are also more likely to think the Budget will benefit them personally.
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Farmers, pensioners and small businesses were seen as biggest losers in Reeves’ budget
More In Common
More broadly, the research highlighted 61 per cent of the public believe Labour is ‘off to a bad start’, including over a third of those who voted for Labour in the election.
The pollsters add: “The number saying Labour is off to a bad start has almost tripled since July, while the number saying there are off to a good start has halved.”
Labour’s drop in popularity began with the controversial cut to the winter fuel payment, before other unpopular decisions such as surrendering the Chagos Islands, setting up Great British Energy and paying off the Unions, not to mention the Sue Grey fiasco and accusations of politicising the civil service.
This was all before Rachel Reeves announced her tax bombshell budget designed to massively boost taxation and spending.
Changes to farmers’ IHT reliefs have been among the most popular measures in the budget, with protests planned for November 19 as hundreds of farmers prepare to descend on Westminster.
