Days after slamming the fact the NFU (National Farmers’ Union) had cancelled their planned protest in London, Clarkson has unleashed a new angry rant against the government over its inheritance tax measures on farmers.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has faced criticism from the agricultural world ever since she announced the changes in Labour’s Budget at the end of October, with Clarkson being just one high-profile opponent.
Under Labour’s new measures, the amount of agricultural assets a farmer can leave to their children tax-free has been capped at £1million – without the opportunity to share the tax relief with their spouses.
The NFU had planned to take to the streets of London to protest the measures on November 19 but were told its members could no longer do so due to “legal reasons”.
Clarkson was publicly outraged by the decision when it was first announced, mocking that if he were part of a pro-Palestine demonstration or a member of Just Stop Oil he doubts there would’ve been any opposition.
Now, in his latest newspaper column, Clarkson has pledged to be at the protest organised by independent farmers to show support, and pulled no punches with his verdict on Reeves and Sir Keir Starmer in doing so.
Jeremy Clarkson owns and runs Diddly Squat Farm in Oxfordshire
AMAZON
The former Top Gear star suggested Reeves and co could’ve targeted their new inheritance tax measures on wealthy land owners like himself rather than all farmers.
“I wouldn’t have liked it very much, but I would have understood,” Clarkson wrote in The Sun, insisting that Reeves’s claims that 73 percent of farms won’t be affected as “nonsense”.
He claimed to have met an “old school farmer” earlier this week who surpassed the £1million threshold due to the monetary value of his cattle alone, without taking into consideration his land assets.
Clarkson pointed out that because of this, the farmer’s children could be forced to sell the farm to pay the taxes – and that another farmer is unlikely to be on hand to snap up the land for sale.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves unveiled the Budget on October 30
PA
“The truth is, there are no farmers who are happy with what Reeves and her politburo have done,” he blasted. “And when you see what happens to the countryside and the cost of your food, you won’t be happy either.”
The Grand Tour star mocked that Labour Party members were okay with the changes due to the fact “they’re all in Kentish Town, living on a diet of quinoa”.
Musing over what the next few years under a Labour government may look like, Clarkson hit out: “I’m becoming more and more 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.
“That’s why they had a Budget which makes farming nigh on impossible. And that’s why I’ll be in London on the 19th.”
Clarkson has been a vocal opponent to Reeves and Starmer’s Budget measures ever since they were announced, taking to X just minutes after the announcement to claim farmers had been “shafted”.
I’m afraid the main problem is that Reeves and Starmer are a bit dim. If they wanted to go after the likes of me, why didn’t they impose the tax on people with other revenue streams? If your main job is farming, you’re exempt. If it isn’t, you aren’t.
— Jeremy Clarkson (@JeremyClarkson) November 9, 2024
His Clarkson’s Farm co-star Kaleb Cooper was similarly unimpressed, sharing his own blistering verdict on the Budget on social media soon after.
On Saturday, Clarkson doubled down on the stance he made clear in his The Sun column when grilled by an X user.
One person criticised the 64-year-old: “Jezza and his Tory school mates are the reason this tax was introduced! It wouldn’t have been if proper farmer families were passing down the farm.”
But Clarkson hit back: “I’m afraid the main problem is that Reeves and Starmer are a bit dim. “If they wanted to go after the likes of me, why didn’t they impose the tax on people with other revenue streams? If your main job is farming, you’re exempt. If it isn’t, you aren’t.” (sic)
The government is yet to publicly respond to the independent farmers planning to protest later this month.
