It could scarcely be a more idyllic morning on Marcross farm. Autumn sun beams down across the Vale of Glamorgan. While it can blow a gale on the south Wales coast, today is perfectly still and the sky bright blue. After a hiccup with the electricity, milking is well under way. Yet despite the apparent serenity and beauty of the surroundings, the mood among the Evans family, who own and run the farm, is gloomy.
They have battled for years to make the farm viable and invested heavily in technology to make that a reality. They have diversified to help cover costs – they have a caravan park nearby. Like farmers across the country, however, they are now seriously worried that the government’s inheritance changes to farming land could scupper their best-laid plans.
“The robots we have for the milking system – there’s a million pounds worth of investment there,” says Tony, 71, who already runs the farm in partnership with his son, Hopkin. “But as for the asset we’ve got in the farm, I’ll never realise the value of it because we won’t sell it. Even though we’re worth a lot on paper, we don’t have that much money in our pockets. That’s what’s worrying people a lot at the moment. I hope the government will look after us, but we’re not so sure.”
Just a few months ago, one of Labour’s biggest election successes was winning scores of rural seats held by the Tories for years. According to research by YouGov’s Patrick English, the Conservatives lost 164 rural constituencies and held on to just 88. The Vale of Glamorgan constituency, home to Marcross farm, is one of them. The last time Labour won it from the Tories was 1997, before losing it in 2010. The party spent serious time and resources before the last election on how to win such seats.
Yet it is now battling angry claims of betrayal among farmers and rural campaigners after the budget decision to subject farming assets worth more than £1m to a 20% inheritance tax charge from April 2026. Ministers say that related allowances will push up the payment threshold to £3m and that the vast majority of farms will be unaffected. Those reassurances do not seem to have assuaged the anger, which veterans of the industry claim is the most fervent and widespread they have ever seen.
Dissent will culminate on Tuesday with two events. The first is an official day of action in which the National Farmers Union (NFU) is organising meetings between almost 2,000 farmers and their MPs. At the same time, a rally in Westminster, largely organised online, is gaining momentum.
“I described it this week as visceral anger,” said Tom Bradshaw, the NFU’s president. “I’ve never seen anything on a parallel to this. It has cut really deep. The sense of betrayal is another element. The secretary of state, Steve Reed, stood on a platform last November and said ‘we will not be changing [inheritance tax rules]’.
“There’s also this wider sense that the government doesn’t understand us. The human impact is the bit I think this government has unintentionally missed.”
Worryingly for Keir Starmer, the issue risks morphing into the wider claim that the new Labour government – which worked so hard to win rural seats – does not understand such areas. An interview with former Tony Blair adviser John McTernan, in which he said he was in favour of doing to farmers “what Margaret Thatcher did to the miners”, is cutting through.
It certainly reached Marcross farm. For Tony’s son, Hopkin, 42, it was the last straw. “I was on the fence about going to London before he said that,” he says. “But when he said that, I thought: hang on, we’ve got to stand up. We’ve got to fight our corner. So I’m going. We’ve got to stand up and say, ‘this is an industry worth fighting for. We are feeding you. We are trying to feed a nation. We’re not trying to rip anyone off’.”
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The comments have also caused huge anger within the government, with officials describing them as “completely shocking”. Starmer has already distanced himself from them.
The Vale of Glamorgan’s new Labour MP, Kanishka Narayan, is also trying to reassure constituents. “We understand concerns, but the majority of those claiming relief will not be affected by these changes,” he said in a statement. “They will be able to pass the family farm down to their children, just as previous generations have always done. This is a fair and balanced approach that protects the family farm while also fixing the public services that we all rely on.”
However, it has given ammunition to Labour’s political opponents. Even before the inheritance tax decision was announced, the Tories regarded winning back lost rural voters as the first stage of a long recovery.
Rishi Sunak brought up the plight of farmers at one of Starmer’s first PMQs as prime minister. And Kemi Badenoch, despite having championed trade deals that now anger many farmers, has leapt on “Labour’s family farm tax”.
But the Tories aren’t the only problem for Labour. Despite the overtly friendly relations during the election campaign, the Lib Dems also spy an opportunity to prove their credentials as the party of the countryside. “The things that outraged farmers in the last parliament were things that were a slow burn,” said Tim Farron, the party’s spokesperson for the environment, food and rural affairs. “But this is a budget event. There’s a sense of a real betrayal. A lot of farmers fled the Tories in huge numbers at the election. There’s a sense they feel that the Labour party, at the first opportunity, has done them unnecessary, avoidable harm and come across as completely cloth-eared. It’s something that angers farmers across the board, whether they can be affected by this or not, because they feel this is an assault on farming.”
So far, Labour discipline has largely held. Despite the number of rural seats it now covers, the new MPs in those constituencies have not spoken out or caused public trouble. In the coming weeks, Labour will begin to push out its “new deal for farmers”. This includes its £5bn farming budget over the next two years and a better agreement with the EU.
The party will need to act fast, however. Treasury sources said that previous chancellors had been presented with the farm tax change, but had pushed back because of the age-old politics of inheritance tax: while it is true that few pay it, many people worry about it.
On Marcross farm, Hopkin’s mother, Sharon, reflects the dangers for Labour in dabbling in such an emotive issue in these newly won seats. “Nearly all our friends have diversified to bring extra income into their farm – bed and breakfasts, holiday lets, we’ve got a caravan park,” she says. “You name it, we’ve done it. We’re empty now. There is nowhere to go.
“We’ve almost reached the point where it’s viable, but will Hopkin be left with a massive overdraft and a massive tax bill? Now we’ve got to spend money talking to accountants and solicitors and discussing the best way forward. This is money that the farm cannot afford. That’s our life’s work. We’ve had the rug pulled out from under our plans, really.”