Politics LIVE: Labour prepares emergency plans to keep food on supermarket shelves if farmers strike
Ministers have been forced to start preparing contingency plans to keep supermarket shelves stocked with food in case farmers follow through with their protest threats over inheritance tax.
Tens of thousands of farmers are set to descend on the capital tomorrow – having already gathered at Labour’s Welsh conference on Saturday – over Rachel Reeves’s inheritance tax raids on family farms.
Farming leaders have distanced themselves from strikes which would lead to food shortages – but have warned that emotions are running high over Labour’s “betrayal” of the countryside.
Farming Minister Daniel Zeichner has called for calm – claiming the “vast majority” of farmers “will be fine” despite the tax hikes, and has criticised “extraordinary” claims about the numbers of farms potentially affected, the BBC reports.
While Transport Secretary Louise Haigh told Sky News that “the choices that we set out in the budget are fair and proportionate” – though she acknowledged “the difficult situation that many are in”.
National Farmers’ Union chief Tom Bradshaw has warned that hitting supermarkets “is not an NFU tactic” in the face of ministers’ worries.
He said: We do not support emptying supermarket shelves. But I do completely understand the strength of feeling that there is amongst farmers.
“They feel helpless today and they’re trying to think of what they can do to try and demonstrate what this means to them.
“We have a Government saying food security is a critical part of national security, yet they’ve ripped the rug out from that very industry, which is going to invest in food security for the future.”
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Starmer set for sit-down with China’s Xi Jinping just weeks after Lammy’s red-faced ‘genocide’ U-Turn
Sir Keir Starmer will be meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Brazil this week in a bid to mend strained relations with the world’s second-largest economy.
The PM is expected to be discussing Ukraine, climate change and economic growth – but the sit-down comes in the face of his own party’s previous comments on China’s “genocide” of Uyghur Muslims.
Back in 2021, Starmer had vowed to “ensure Britain never turns a blind eye to genocide” and condemned the “persecution” of the group in the country’s Xinjiang province.
While last year, David Lammy had said a then-future Labour Government would pursue legal routes to declare that China is committing genocide against the Uyghurs.
Then, after having been elected, a British Government source told the Guardian that “genocide is a determination for competent international courts to decide”.
This week, Downing Street says Starmer will “be firm on the need to have honest conversations on areas of disagreement”, and that engagement would be “rooted at all times in the UK’s national interests”.
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