The Treasury got their sums wrong on farmer inheritance tax – and the people in the middle simply won’t be fine, says Nigel Farage

I think somebody in the Treasury got their sums wrong when they were advising the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves.

You see, the Labour Government says it’s not a problem – 75 per cent of farms just won’t be affected by these new inheritance tax rules.

And yet the National Farmers’ Union themselves say it will be at least two-thirds.

I have to say, my conclusion on all of this is the small farmer, somebody running 5 or 10 acres, a smallholder basically will be fine. The giant agribusinesses, they’ll be fine as well. It’s the people in the middle that simply won’t be fine.

Property prices over the last few years have rocketed land prices too. In fact, in Lincolnshire, an acre of land now is about £30,000 an acre.

And it is true that some billionaires have bought up vast tracts of farmland without ever intending to farm them themselves as a way of avoiding inheritance tax.

But what this proposal does is hit families running farms, families whose incomes are incredibly modest, far more modest than I think most people believe. They’ve got an asset, yes, that’s worth a lot of money, although for many of them, it isn’t just about money, it’s about a way of life that’s been going on for generations.

And I would ask people to think, our countryside is admired the world over. People love the British countryside, and one of the reasons is those families have farmed it so well for so long. Now, this was far from the first time that I’ve been out with the rural communities protesting in this country.

I was out 20 years ago, protesting against the hunting ban. Indeed, 406,000 of us marched on that countryside march. We weren’t listening to the Government at all. It kind of didn’t matter, because it was the Conservatives that held the rural constituencies, not Labour. And Blair wasn’t bothered.

This time, it may be different. Well, I turned up on parade. I have to say, on a personal level, I was really, really thrilled at the welcome that I received from people queuing up in Whitehall.

The atmosphere was amazing. It was upbeat, it was jolly, it was peaceful. I barely heard a swear word all day. It was extraordinary.

It was a remarkably British thing and that’s how we do it. But I did hear one or two people saying, well, maybe we ought to be a bit more like the French. Whether that’s really good advice, I don’t know.

Can we make any progress with this? Well, Jeremy Clarkson was there, which was good to see, given the recent medical problems that he’s had, and I think he feels as much as I feel that something can be done about this. And here’s the reason why.

Labour now have somewhere between 70 and 100 seats they won at the election in rural or semi-rural constituencies. And I think what this movement now needs to do is not just to get together in London, but to be seen in market towns all over this country, especially ones that Labour won by very narrow margins at the next general election.

I always knew that the hunting ban was going to come in. I always knew that no one would listen.

But this time I think we can get a change. I think we can get a serious revision of that starting level.

Starmer’s not budging. My question for you at home – is this just the start of a rural revolt, yes or no?