‘The farming lobby have a chance of changing Labour’s policy,’ says Nigel Farage

So there was a vote in the House of Commons today and there were one or two Labour dissenters.

One of them was Markus Campbell-Savours, who represents the rural constituency of Penrith and Solway, this is what he had to say: “I’m no rebel. I’m a moderate.

“But during the election, I read what I thought were assurances from my party that we had no plans to introduce changes to APR.

“On this basis, I reassured farmers in my constituency that we would not.

“Now I simply am not prepared to break my word. I’m told that there is no Labour MP in the country with as many farms as I do in Penrith and Solway, and I hope my colleagues will understand my feelings on this.”

And he’s right, of course. It wasn’t clearly stated during the election or in the manifesto that this is what the Labour Party would do.

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There are about, it depends how you measure it, but up to 100 Labour Members of Parliament now representing areas that have quite a lot of farming that takes place within them.

But he abstained, that particular MP, as did 60 or 70 Labour MPs.

But by 339 to 181 the government’s IHT proposals were approved by parliament.

I do genuinely think they’ve got their sums wrong.

I do think [the farming] lobby has got a chance of changes, and that is simply because, it depends how you measure it.

Some say 70, some say 130 – but 100 or so constituencies are held by Labour MPs, and they’re held by margins with the width of a cigarette paper.