Welsh farmers held a mass protest on Tuesday against British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s policies that threaten their businesses and livelihoods.
The rally was held in the north Wales town of Llandudno near the building where Labour Party conferences are held. Hundreds of people took part in the protests, some arriving on farm tractors.
Previously, farms were entitled to 100 per cent inheritance tax relief on agricultural and business property, reducing the amounts farmers and landowners pay when farmland is passed on after death.
However, from April 6, 2026, the full death tax exemption will only apply to the first £1 million ($1.27 million) of combined agricultural and business property.
“Britain is going full Stalin”
Technology billionaire Elon Musk, a critic of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said on his social media account X on Monday that “Britain is going full Stalin,” in an apparent reference to the forced collectivisation of private farms carried out by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
He shared a Guardian newspaper commentary accusing farmers of “holding on to land for too long” and said inheritance tax changes could destroy farms and give young farmers a chance to buy land.
Impact of the policy change on farms
The National Farmers Union (NFU), which represents more than 45,000 members in England and Wales, said its “massive lobby” in parliament would help explain the impact of the policy change on farms, agriculture and the food supply. NFU president Tom Bradshaw said in a video message to members:
“This awful family farm tax has to be overturned. The evidence that this decision is based on is weak. Even the government can’t agree between Defra (the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) and Treasury whether the figures are accurate.”
Central to the dispute is how many people may be affected. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Monday that the “vast majority of farms” would not be impacted.
The government says the actual inheritance tax threshold could be as high as 3 million pounds ($3.8 million) when exemptions for each partner in a couple and for farm property are taken into account.
The Treasury argues that this way nearly three-quarters of farms will not have to pay death tax.
But the NFU insists that more farms will have to pay the tax when land, property and equipment are taken into account, citing Defra figures showing that 66 per cent of farms in England have a net worth of more than £1 million.
On Monday, protesters blocked a motorway leading to the French capital with tractors in protest at a free trade agreement between the European Union and the Common Market of South America “Mercosur” that could have been signed at Monday’s opening G20 summit in Brazil.
