The video focuses on the controversy surrounding a government proposal to impose a 20% inheritance tax on farms worth over 1 million, affecting farmers significantly. It showcases reactions from the farming community, including a notable presence of Jeremy Clarkson, who supports the farmers' cause. Clarkson argues that the tax unfairly targets farmers, as many will be compelled to sell their farms to afford the tax. The video reveals tensions in government policy and debates on where public funding should be sourced, highlighting both sides.

The discussion turns to the political and economic implications of the proposed inheritance tax. It examines the positions of various political figures and parties, including the Labour and Tory parties, on this issue. The dialogue addresses the need for the Labour government to balance public finances while considering the burden on rural areas and farmers. The debate also touches on personal tax rates and historical tax relief provided to farmers under previous governments.

Main takeaways from the video:

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. inheritance tax [ɪnˈherɪtəns tæks] - (n.) - A tax imposed on individuals who inherit property or money from a deceased person. - Synonyms: (death tax, estate duty, succession duty)

Farmers came to Westminster, as you know, to try and persuade the government to ditch its plan to make some farmers pay an inheritance tax of 20% on farms worth over 1 million.

2. furious [ˈfjʊəriəs] - (adj.) - Extremely angry; full of fury or rage. - Synonyms: (enraged, irate, livid.)

Farmers were a kind of mixture of furious and anguished and bewildered, and Jeremy Clarkson was amongst them.

3. bewildered [bɪˈwɪldərd] - (adj.) - Confused and perplexed; unable to understand or think clearly. - Synonyms: (confounded, puzzled, baffled.)

Farmers were a kind of mixture of furious and anguished and bewildered, and Jeremy Clarkson was amongst them.

4. proselytise [ˈprɒsəlɪˌtaɪz] - (v.) - To convert or attempt to convert someone from one religion, belief, or opinion to another. - Synonyms: (evangelize, convert, preach.)

I'm not here to proselytise for the Labour Party.

5. exempt [ɪɡˈzɛmpt] - (adj.) - Free from an obligation or liability imposed on others. - Synonyms: (excused, released, spared.)

And Labour's saying farmers shouldn't be exempt from that.

6. equilibrium [ˌiːkwəˈlɪbriəm] - (n.) - A state of balance; a stable situation where opposing forces are equal. - Synonyms: (balance, stability, evenness.)

It has to get the public finances in equilibrium.

7. mitigation [ˌmɪtɪˈɡeɪʃən] - (n.) - The act of reducing the severity, seriousness, or painfulness of something. - Synonyms: (reduction, alleviation, easing.)

John Whitby, but Derbyshire Dale, saying he would like to see some mitigation, that is some softening of it.

8. asset [ˈæsɛt] - (n.) - A valuable item or resource owned by a person or entity. - Synonyms: (property, resource, possession.)

The government cannot assume that we have these; we just want to sell these assets.

9. constituency [kənˈstɪtjuənsi] - (n.) - A body of voters in a specified area who elect a representative to a legislative body. - Synonyms: (electorate, district, ward.)

Do you think this Labour government understands the countryside? I mean, they won a number of seats in rural constituencies.

10. equilibrium [ˌiːkwəˈlɪbriəm] - (n.) - A state of balance or rest due to the equal action of opposing forces. - Synonyms: (balance, stability, symmetry.)

It has to get the public finances in equilibrium.

Starmer v Farmers - why are British farmers angry and protesting against the government?

Farmers came to Westminster, as you know, to try and persuade the government to ditch its plan to make some farmers pay an inheritance tax of 20% on farms worth over 1 million. Some told me today it would mean they'd be forced to sell their farms because they wouldn't be able to afford to pay it. Farmers were a kind of mixture of furious and anguished and bewildered, and Jeremy Clarkson was amongst them.

So why. Why are you here, Mr. Clarkson? Well, because I'm here to support farmers. Right. Are you angry? To be angry on somebody else's behalf, that's like being. Yes. No, I'm not angry on someone else's behalf. Right, so it's not about you, it's not about your farm and the fact that you bought a farm to avoid inheritance tax. Classic BBC there. Classic. Oh, yeah. It's not the fact that. The fact that I bought a farm to avoid inheritance tax. The fact you told the Sunday Times in 2021 that's why you bought it. BBC. Okay, let's start from the begin. I wanted to shoot.

Okay, that's even worse to the BBC, I wanted to shoot. Which comes with the benefit of not having to pay inheritance tax. Now I do, but people like me will simply put it in a trust. And so long as I live for seven years, that's fine. And as my daughter said, you will live for seven years. You might be in a deep freeze at the end of it, but you will live for seven years. But it's incredibly time consuming to have to do that. And why should all these people have to do that? Why should they?

So one of the reasons Rachel Reeves says she brought this in in is to stop wealthy people using it as a. No, that was the only reason she did. Well, no, the other reason was to. To. To raise money for public services. Well, have you. Are you listening to this? Have you tried to get a GP appointment lately? Yes, I just recently had a heart attack. Okay. So, you know, it's tough.

Yes. So where should they get the money from if it's not from. From farmers. We hear that everyone with BBC thinks you should be paying for everything. Okay. Do you know pay inheritance tax in this country? It's 4% of estates. What? 4% of estates. 4% pay inheritance tax. 96% of the population of the UK does not pay inheritance tax. After this becomes law, 96% of farmers will.

Where have you got that figure from? Who? Here. Can I just ask, who here is going to be unaffected by these changes? No one. Right. Where have you got the 96% figure? Well, you've got 96%. Well, the same place that Rachel Reeves does, from the middle of her head, from the Sixth Form Debating society that she was no doubt a member of, which formed her opinions. And yours? I am not expressing opinions. I'm literally asking you questions. You know that, Mr. Clarkson.

So what is your message to this government? Please back down, please. And get the money from where? Well, they've got 40 billion. I'll tell you where you go. Walk into any of the offices around here if you don't understand what's up. Somebody's job is fire them. The civil service. Civil service is too top, you know that. I must get on.

Jeremy Clarkson with us in the studio. Sir Jake Berry, former Tory chair and a minority shareholder in a company which owns a small farm in Wales which wouldn't be affected by the inheritance tax changes. And Jim Murphy, former Labour Secretary of State for Scotland and close to the Starmer team. Welcome both of you. What did you make of Mr. Clarkson, what he had to say?

Well, I know I'm in a minority, but it's the first time I've ever seen him on television. I don't watch cooking or motor car programs and I hear a rumour that he does at least one of those. So he does a farming program now? He's a farmer. He's a farmer now.

Okay, look, I think the farmers are pretty ill served by him being one of their spokespeople. Why? Well, I think he's rude, I think he's aggressive. I think from what I read he invested in a farm for inheritance reasons and hence tax reasons. I think it's a disservice to the hard working hundreds of thousands of farmers in the country.

But the most substantial point is that the new Labour government has had a budget that is really pretty consequential. And I know there are some people unnerved that we're still debating it three weeks later. But I don't think the Labour Party will be that unnerved by it because this is probably. I don't think they'll be unnerved by today.

Will today go well for the late. I don't think there'll be a nervousness about a continuing debate about how we have to reset the economy because they were elected at a time when personal income tax is at highest in history. I'm not here to proselytise for the Labour Party. Jake isn't here to argue the Tory party's case either. But it is a fact that personal taxes are higher than they've ever been.

And Labour couldn't increase personal taxes. So they faced a choice cut the NHS pretty drastically or introduce a set of taxes around assets. And that's what they've done. And on this in particular, just in a particular point, on inheritance tax, the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker are going to have to pay inheritance tax if they pass the businesses on. And Labour's saying farmers shouldn't be exempt from that. But there are exemptions. They'll pay that half the rate as everyone else. That's not correct, is it?

So we have two systems and both of them are an acknowledgement that if you have a butcher, baker, candlestick maker, or in fact a small family farm, if you have to split that business up because of the death of a proprietor, whoever he or she may be, then you have no business after it. Which is why for decades we've had business property relief and agricultural property relief, both of which the Labour Party has sought to reduce in this budget. And we're going to have to find money.

Many farmers are. I was there at the protest, like you were today, and I was talking to farmers and actually, I think. I think you're wrong, actually. I think Jeremy Clarkson is warmly regarded by the farming community because he. Whether you like what he stands for, what he says, he draws public attention to the plight of farmers. And if you look, for example, at cereal farmers, they've had a 73% drop in their income because of the adverse weather we've had. So it is a sector under massive pressure.

And what I think, when I was there, what people are asking me is what people are really concerned about is it doesn't feel like the Labour Party has got a real grip on the number of people who are going to be affected by this. It feels like a stab in the dark. And I saw you having a bit of a debate with Jeremy about how many people would be affected. DEFRA, the government's agricultural department, says that 66% of farms are worth over a million pounds. The treasury says that only a third of farms are going to be affected by this.

They. I go on the HMRC figures. Well, they can't be. Well, the HMRC figures are wrong. You are wrong to go on them, because the HMRC figures. Now, I'll tell you why they're wrong. The HMRC figures only deal with farms that would have benefited from agricultural property relief. That's not how farms work. Farms also use business property relief for non fixed assets. Cattle, combine harvesters, grain in the grain silo is all dealt with Business property relief.

Let me ask you about most farms would use both and that's why this is a perfect storm for farming, because they are closing both reliefs, stopping people passing their farms on to the next generation. Hemi Badenot was there today, leader of the Conservatives, Nigel Farage of Reform Centre, Davy of the Lib Dems all see this now as a chance to win the farming vote. How are the Tories going to fight off reform for this rural vote?

Or can they when both Mr. Farage and Boris Johnson, as was then, were advocates of Brexit, which has damaged farmers? Well, I think it's a very different debate than Brexit. We main thing about farming, the main thing about the inheritance tax changes is like the straw that's broken the camel's back after Brexit. Yes, but those Brexit checks about what happened in the last budget just three weeks ago, the. No, I'm asking, I'm asking you how reform. You asked me which store boat the camel back.

So I don't think Brexit has affected farming in the way you say, because actually most products in the UK are sold to our domestic market. That's the first thing to say about Brexit. Well, at the end of what you said this year, since subsidies for farms have fallen by up to 37%. But if we look at. Well, and actually that's why I want to talk about this budget. So let's look at what happened.

So farmers had a transition period till 2028 to deal with something called the basic farm payment scheme, which is the, the acreage scheme. They got paid, they were told that would be until 2028. That has been brought in to 2025. For some farms seeing a 60% drop of their income, that's nothing to do with decision by the Labour government.

Look at the tax on double cab pickups with the farm vehicle of choice that has gone up in this budget by 211%. Look at the loss of business property relief and the loss of inheritance tax relief. That is why farmers were protesting on the street today, saying this is a perfect storm for farming.

Is this a problem for Labour? I mean, people are saying they don't get rural Britain. I don't think that's fair, but I understand why people say it. But no matter who you introduced attacks about or on, there's going to be protests. And what the Labour Party has to do strategically, what it has to be is it has to balance the books, it has to get the public finances in equilibrium.

I noticed that Kimi Badenoch was there today. I'm not here to give her advice. But you're about to. Well, I think she's got to be careful because in the few weeks that she's been in office, she's already adopted two pretty expensive spending commitments. One is to reverse the VAT on private education and the second one is to reverse this inheritance tax changes.

And if she's not careful, I think she'll end up getting to a point at the next election that she'll acquire so many expensive spending commitments that she'll be all opposition and no leadership. We'll see. We'll come back to you in a second.

We're going to hear from more farmers who I spoke to today. I've got £3 million worth of cattle stood in the shed. That's my livestock. That's before I start my assets. We've got no money. Every penny we make is ploughed back into the farm for the next generation.

If that's gone, that's gone. Look at these young people here. They've got no future. If this carries on, they're finished. We work all the hours God sends to put food on everybody's tables. And to think that my grandfather has passed this down to my mother, to my brother, and we could end up losing this.

We always worked to farm. We were never going to do anything else. And, yeah, it really. It's so upsetting. It's heartbreaking. I fear many families, I mean, we can relate, but around the country will end up losing their farms.

Do you think this Labour government understands the countryside? I mean, they won a number of seats in rural constituencies. Yeah. They wouldn't. They did it. Their heart's not in it. You know, I just can't see it. Whatever they've done at the moment has been destroying the people of the country.

The government cannot assume that we have these. We just want to sell these assets. They're not. They're ours. We want to hold onto them because it's our land, it's our farm and this will be the end of family farms. Do you really think that's the case? In many cases, yes. That small farms will have to be forced to sell to larger landowners and the small family businesses, they're gone.

It's completely unfair. Nick, are there some anxious Labour MPs? What are you picking up? I would say, Vic, that most Labour MPs take Jim Murphy's view, which is that they absolutely see the point of this. But we are beginning to see the first concerns amongst Labour MPs in these new rural seats they've got.

So Steve Witherden, who's a Welsh Labour mp, talking about he needs to see the modelling of the impact on family farms. John Whitby, but Derbyshire Dale, saying he would like to see some mitigation, that is some softening of it. And then Andy McNay, I believe he might possibly be familiar to Jake Berry because he unseated the sitting Conservative MP in Rossildale, Rossendale and Darwin. And he's saying he would like to take the concerns of farmers back to the Treasury.

But other Labour MPs, they are being supportive. Here's one. I've met my farmers and I've said I've got to be able to look them in the eye and know we're doing the right things. Who should shoulder the burden? Narrow or broad shoulders? We know it should be broad shoulders because of the state of the public finances in terms of the Government, they are putting on a united front.

They're saying no backing down, no softening. But of course, last week I did report that the Department of Environment were trying to hope at easing the rules for older farmers who can't make use of the seven year inheritance tax rule. They were sat on by the Treasury.

POLITICS, ECONOMICS, LEADERSHIP, FARMING, INHERITANCE TAX, JEREMY CLARKSON, BBC NEWSNIGHT