If Only Clarkson Talked About This—The Real British Farmer Scandal
It's of course much deeper than an illogical tax raid...
When Jeremy Clarkson spoke at the farmers’ protest in Westminster earlier this month in light of the government’s recent tax raid, he drew a lot of eye-balls.
It marked a rare moment in which a celebrity got his hands dirty and stood side by side some of the hardest workers in the country. In his speech, he covered significant ground, including cheap imports, narrowing profits margins, and increased red tape.
But it’s what he missed about the larger picture that could have really opened the public’s eye.
To recap, in September 2024, Chancellor Rachel Reeves unveiled Labour's first Budget since 2010. Among sweeping changes, a key reform stood out: the end of Agricultural Property Relief (APR) exemptions for inheritance tax on farmland.
Under the current system, Agricultural Property Relief (APR) exempts farmland from inheritance tax (IHT). Starting April 2026, farms will lose this exemption, with a 20% tax applied to agricultural assets exceeding £1 million.
The government justified it to repair public finances, with Reeves saying it will support the NHS. However, some estimate it’ll only generate £115 million annually, less than 0.01% of government spending.
Combined with cuts to Business Property Relief, total expected revenue brought in with IHT works out to £520 million annually—far from transformative, given the scale of Britain’s fiscal state.
As of June 2024, the UK's national debt was estimated to be £2.8 trillion—or £2,800,000,000,000. For further context, £500 million approximately works out to a day’s worth of NHS spending—yes, a day.
There’s been some debate around how many farmers this will effect. The Country Land and Business Association warns that 70,000 farms could be. The government claims only 462 will, but their estimates were based on old data.
Outlet Guido Fawkes later uncovered the IHT rise was based off research by one man, who’s continually called for more taxes across the board. Guido remarked, “Reeves has contracted out her tax policymaking to far-left academics”.
Adding to their woes, the government has also sped up the phase-out of Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) subsidies, cutting 76% of direct payments to farmers by next year.
Coupled with increasing operational costs, including rising minimum wage rates, new national insurance hikes, and some of the highest electricity prices globally, and there’s a hell of a lot of financial pressure brewing.
All considered, sceptics wondered, why is Starmer hitting them so hard, so fast? Some 8,100 UK farms closed in the past year alone, equal to 1 in 25 farms nationwide. They need help, not hindrance.
The move certainly isn’t populist. Polling conducted for the Conservative Rural Forum found that 57% of Brits believe family farms should not be subject to inheritance tax. While only 24% supported applying such taxes.
Then, the penny dropped.
In the aftermath, news broke that the Labour government (first initiated by a Conservative government) is continuing to give more than £500 million to foreign agricultural programs.
New analysis revealed that £536 million is being spent across ten programs in Africa, Asia, and South America, including £206 million allocated to a decade-long initiative launched in 2012.
Included is support for countries such as Brazil, the world’s 11th-richest nation, with low-carbon agriculture and Rwanda, where £16 million is earmarked to develop the country's first tea industry.
Last Thursday, Labour pledged an additional £70 million more in taxpayer funds to foreign farming initiatives. £50 million has been approved to tackle food insecurity in Ethiopia, Chad, and Bangladesh and £25.5 million for agricultural businesses and smallholders across Africa and Asia.
The cherry perhaps came when ministers simultaneously said they’re contemplating more red tape.
A recent consultation by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs proposed imposing civil and criminal penalties on farmers for improper hedge trimming, arguing that damaged hedgerows harm wildlife habitats. Although this again was Conservative-initiated but carried on by Labour.
Of course, such events are occurring at the same time the Labour government allocates unprecedented investment to experimental (and sometimes environmentally damaging) green technology.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband announced in July 2024 a £1.5 billion budget for the latest renewable energy auction, a 50% increase from the previous year, with much of the funding directed toward offshore wind power.
Beyond wind, Miliband pledged £21.7 billion in funding for three carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in the North West, Teesside, and the Humber, to be distributed over 25 years.
Revelations since have emerged about key players in the green tech sector and Labour leadership, with concerns over potential corruption, nepotism, and conflicts of interest.
For example, Joe Butler-Trewin, a chief lobbyist for the Carbon Capture and Storage Association—a group representing the carbon capture, usage, and storage (CCUS) industry—is a former campaign staffer for Keir Starmer.
Compounding the problem, Ed Miliband’s brother David Miliband, is affiliated with Giant Ventures, a London-based venture capital firm focused on green technology.
The firm has reported investments in companies poised to benefit from Labour’s energy policies, including Field Energy, a battery storage firm co-founded by Amit Gudka, a former executive of the collapsed energy provider Bulb.
Backed by Giant Ventures from its inception in 2021, Field Energy has already developed or is constructing five battery storage sites in the UK to support renewable energy infrastructure.
In 2020, David pocketed a cool $1 million (£772,000) from the International Rescue Committee, a charity that received £50 million from the UK government to “alleviate global poverty and distress”—leaving one wondering about his salary as a paid advisor for Giant Ventures.
His brother, Energy Secretary Ed, has not publicly disclosed the conflict contrary to ministerial interest rules. UnHerd journalist David Rose discovered the link.
Concerns about such domestic conflicts and corruption, however, pale compared to events in the macro.
If farmers are forced to sell their land to stay out of the red—who will they sell to? Will it be the state or the transnational corporates?
Either way, the result looks to be the same.
Researcher Sandi Adams has trawled through pages upon pages of NGO, government, and local council white papers that lay out a very clear plan: replace farmland with renewable energy installations at an industrial scale.
For instance, in Somerset, as a part of the council’s ‘Corporate Plan’, she found a PDF illustrating plans for wind and solar installations. It looked to cover the near majority of existing and possible farmland in the county:
Naturally, the government can’t cover such a seismic Net Zero projects—using our money—on their own, which is where the mega corporates come in.
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with $11.5 trillion under its control as of November 2024, has cemented itself as a dominant force in the renewable energy sector, with a significant and growing focus on the UK.
BlackRock’s involvement in the UK green energy landscape began years ago. By 2017, its Renewable Income UK fund had raised over £1.1 billion, becoming one of the largest single investments in the country’s renewable sector.
At the time, £600 million of this fund had already been channelled into 40 wind and solar projects across the UK. Its influence expanded further in 2018, when BlackRock, in partnership with Lightsource BP through the Kingfisher initiative, acquired an additional 57MW of solar assets, boosting its total UK solar capacity to approximately 350MW—enough to power an estimated 875,000 homes under typical conditions.
More recently, in June 2023, BlackRock launched five climate transition exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in Europe, including the UK. Such ETFs provide investors with access to companies leading the shift toward a “low-carbon economy”.
Globally, the corporation estimates that the green energy transition will require an annual investment of $5 trillion by 2035, lauding the importance of “public-private partnerships”. That fateful phrase routinely spouted at the World Economic Forum’s annual conferences.
And who’s recently invited BlackRock CEO, Larry “force behaviours” Fink, for tea in 10 Downing Street? Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who confirmed their role in helping shape the UK’s economy. All of which occurred exactly two days after approximately 13,000 farmers blockaded Whitehall.
The two-party system’s policies—ranging from tax reforms, reductions in farming subsidies, record spending on green energy and foreign aid—are defended as essential for economic repair.
However, the deeper implications suggest an agenda that goes far beyond fiscal necessity—they’re funding Rwandan tea for Pete’s sake while moaning about being broke.
Labour is repurposing British farmland into a “green” commodity, controlled either by elite investors or the state, at the expense of independent farmers.
It constitutes an existential threat. Unless our farmers keep standing up and Jeremy continues to led the way. Maybe, it might at least delay the plans.
For those looking to delve deeper into the specifics, Rachel Matthews of Council Watch’s conversation with Sandi Adams provides a compelling snapshot of what lies ahead:
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In my region the vast majority of the farmland has been swallowed up by bio-fuels which we call elephant grass, acre after acre of previously food producing land growing this crop WHICH USES MORE ENERGY THAN IT PRODUCES to assist with the insane net zero nonsense.
This land has gone from local ownership to corporate control.
The Liebour Party has not been the party of the working people for decades.
The Con-servative Party has failed us too and the Liberal Demon-crats are no better.
Time to get rid of the party system period. Nobody ever voted for it, the establishment imposed it.
Stupidity at its finest… Rachel the faker .. obviously got an F in mathematics… how on earth can she think her budget that raped the elderly and shafted the farmers ever going to alter the black hole they are creating.. 22 billion is a drop in the ocean.. and Chief Twerp has not enough brainpower to figure out his black hole has been swallowed up by a big giant hole of which he could never repair because he left the banks in charge of interest rates .. and every day when he packs up to go home… the debt we owe just gets bigger and bigger.. what a Twerp.