‘Just talk to us!’: Farmers and Jeremy Clarkson protest at Westminster

Farmers from all over the country head to Westminster to protest against new inheritance tax policies.

Transcript

00:00So I'm Aled Bates, I'm from a family farm up in North Wales, Hill Farm.

00:05I've come down to London today to join the march and the protest today.

00:10We feel very much that policies are being written by people in power

00:14who don't come and talk to the farmers and don't understand our viewpoints.

00:19You know, if we work together I'm sure that something can be done kind of thing

00:22but it's very much a case of, yeah, the policies have been done,

00:26the things have been done and there's just kind of,

00:28it feels like you've just got to deal with it and that's why we're here trying to,

00:31but we're here trying to have a conversation.

00:33We've got representatives from the NFU, like, talking to MPs.

00:37It's not, we're not here spreading slurry on the road,

00:39we're here to have that mature conversation and let's go forward, innit?

00:44My name is Neil Hudson, I'm the Member of Parliament for Epping Forest

00:48and I'm also a Shadow DEFRA Minister.

00:50So I'm here with the Shadow DEFRA team and Conservative colleagues

00:54and we are protesting, sending a very strong message to Keir Starmer's Labour government

00:59that they have got this family farm tax policy catastrophically wrong.

01:04This policy, if it comes in, will be so damaging to British farming.

01:09Families will go out of business and people will not be able to pass on their land

01:13to the next generation and this is catastrophic.

01:15It's ill-judged, they've not done an impact assessment and they've got to reverse it.

01:19My father couldn't come down because he's got to feed the cows, you know what I mean?

01:22Yeah, farmers are on strike this week but that's virtually impossible, do you know what I mean?

01:27The cows have got to be milked twice a day, there's a lot of farmers that can't come here

01:30and I'm lucky enough to have taken the day off and come down here because my father can feed at home.

01:35So we're here representing all the lads and ladies at home that can't make it.

01:40And yet, I know a lot of the schools, the children are wearing wellies to school,

01:44people are going to work in wellies, you know, we're all standing together

01:47because we're all believing in the same thing.

01:49There'll be farmers who vote Labour, there'll be farmers, Plaid Cymru, Conservatives

01:53and our political viewpoints that way might not disagree but we all agree on the same thing here today

01:58is that something needs to change.