Aren’t you all surprised by them blocking public rights of way and trying to intimidate anyone who says they should live by the same rules as the rest of us?
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trying to intimidate anyone who says they should live by the same rules as the rest of us?
*Anybody who says they should at the very least pay half the rate of anybody else, on assets that only start being taxed after 3x the threshold of anybody else, and can be paid back interest free in a period 20x longer than anybody else gets.
They’re not farmer protests. They’re Jeremy-Clarkson-wants-to-keep-his-property-because-the-government-actually-taxed-the-rich-for-once protests where he gaslit some farmers for optics. This is all about tax avoidance and a closed loophole. Do not let them change the framing.
Ok, this might be controversial, but….
Farms that have been in a family for generations, and the current owner plans to continue farming should not have inheritance tax levied on them. If a farm is sold, then additional tax can be paid at that point.
Million/billionaires buying farms for the purpose of avoiding inheritance tax (Clarkson) or obtaining millions of pounds in subsidies (Dyson) should be paying double.
The people producing food are already getting screwed over on prices, and the suicide rate among farmers is scarily high. We should be helping these people, not victimising them for protesting or crippling subsequent generations when they start.
But no, they shouldn’t be blocking public rights of way or trying to intimidate people. But that’s not just farmers, that’s money-hoarding land-hoarding bastards too like those on Dartmoor.
Agree with everything you said. I find the hostillity towards farmers strange. I’m convinved a lot of the negativity comes from more urban folk who are still bitter that farmers generally voted for Brexit (although they voted inline with the rest of the population) and imagine that they’re all loaded. Farmers literally produce our food and essentially work 24/7, no matter the weather, work in dangerous conditions (heavy machinery) and like you said, have crazy high suicide rates.
It’s a tough one. I’m pretty pro-farmer and think that this policy seems to be burning a lot of bridges for very little gain.
The farming community really struggle with optics. You’re absolutely bang on about the Brexit thing, that didn’t help them. A lot of people point to farmers being very wealthy people - and on paper it’s true. The land, the seeded fields and infrastructure, and the colossal machinery means even a small farm is usually a multi-million pound enterprise… but the liquid assets available to farmers are generally next to fuck all, and my anecdotal experience of living rurally is that most farms are one bad crop away from having to cut back and choosing to heat or eat; and two bad crops from bankruptcy.
I don’t think the general public quite realise the tiny margins the farmers are on - between the cost of living and doing business, and the absolute pittance that supermarkets and the retail industry have been squeezing them at the point of sale. I’ve never seen so many Samaritans banners on major routes through the countryside.
Unfortunately, all the general public see are farmers blocking the roads in their £750,000 behemoth trucks waving Tory flags, complaining about 20% inheritance tax rate when everyone else paid double - when that’s just a surface level view of the problem.
I should imagine that if you took the takings of a farm per year, and divided it by the number of folk working it and divided it by an 80 hour working week (for generalisations sake), then it would be quite clear that farming isn’t the business to be in if you want to be rich.
e: I’m sorry, I used the “you” there, I’m not arguing against the person I’m replying to, I’m largely arguing alongside.
I’m convinved a lot of the negativity comes from more urban folk
Possibly, and not helped by a skewed view of farming shows where they’re raking in millions, Clarksons Farm, that female shepherdess and her family, etc.
Maybe urbanites need a year of living and working on a proper farm instead of the proposed new national service.
instead of the proposed new national service.
Why can’t that be one of the options of National Service? It doesn’t have to be military service.
I actually support the farmers in this tbf. I just wanted to make a shit joke about them blocking green lanes and footpaths.
I try to avoid conspiracybrain but this policy seems so badly designed it seems as if the point is to force farmers into reverse mortgages.
If the real point is to make money for the treasury, discourage land banking and encourage more productive use of land, then a very modest land value tax would be more suitable and much fairer.
As it is, it’s going to dispossess farmers of land and make a tiny amount of revenue from a tax that big business is immune from.
Probably a post for !askuk@feddit.uk or !uk_politics@feddit.uk?
Preferably the former unless it’s a news article.
Cats
I’m not sure about UK but here in Belgium we call that a “Tuesday”.
I think their protest is great and if you try to impede ypu deserve cow shit thrown at you
