The new Labour government is facing a showdown with farmers as anger mounts over plans to raise inheritance tax revenue from normally exempt agricultural holdings.

As thousands of tractors and farmers from across the UK planned to converge on London on Tuesday, November 19, to protest against the Chancellor’s Budget plans.

The protest is being held to oppose Labour’s adjustments to Agricultural Property Relief (APR), which will result in a 20% inheritance tax on farms valued over £1 million from April 2026.
It is expected other protests will be held in Cardiff and other parts of Wales.

The rally is separate from the NFU’s ‘mass lobby of MPs,’ which will be attended by 1,800 farmers and has reached capacity.

North Wales hill farmer and social media influencer Gareth Wyn Jones is also calling for a food strike and is calling on other producers to follow suit.

His family has tended the same land at Llanfairfechan for more than 375 years, but in more recent times has amassed a sizeable social media following.

Starting on Sunday, he said he would go on strike and stop delivering any food for a week. He is calling on food producers who can afford it to join in.

“This is a statement to show government that this could be the future,” he said. “It’s not to starve people, but have them understand what the future is going to look like when there isn’t going to be food there 24/7.”

Farmers believe the tax changes will cause the break-up of family farms when the owner dies, hitting both the viability of farm businesses and food supplies.

At the weekend farmers with tractors gathered in force outside the Welsh Labour conference venue in protest as Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer defended his government's recent Budget measures.

Starmer told the conference in Llandudno on Saturday that he would defend Labour’s Budget “all day long”.

Hailing a “new era” of Labour Wales and Labour Britain “pulling in the same direction”, the Prime Minister said the Welsh branch had “carried the torch” for the party during 14 years of Conservative rule in Westminster.

In his first address as Prime Minister to the conference, Sir Keir praised the election of 27 MPs in July, making Wales a “Tory-free zone” .

Outside Venue Cymru in the north Wales seaside town, protest organisers Digon yw Digon – which translates as Enough in Enough – said: “Our Government isn’t working or listening to us.”

Welsh farmer and Youtuber Gareth Wyn Jones said farmers will deliver a letter to Sir Keir which begins: “Don’t bite the hand that feed you.”

Mr Wyn Jones told Sky News: “They’re destroying an industry that’s already on its knees and struggling, absolutely struggling, mentally, emotionally and physically.

“We need Government support, not more hindrance, so we can produce food to feed the nation.”

Mr Wyn Jones disputed the Government’s estimation that only 500 farming estates in the UK will be affected by the inheritance tax changes.

He said: “Look, a lot of farmers in this country are in their 70s and 80s, they haven’t handed their farms down because that’s the way it’s always been, they’ve always known there was never going to be inheritance tax.”

A row has erupted over the new taxes for farms worth more than £1 million, exacerbated by uncertainty about the figures Ms Reeves based the decision on.

Treasury data shows that around three-quarters of farmers will pay nothing in inheritance tax as a result of the controversial changes announced in the Budget last month.

However, farmers have challenged the figures, pointing instead to data from the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs which suggests 66% of farm businesses are worth more than the £1 million threshold at which inheritance tax will now need to be paid.

Sir Keir did not mention the inheritance tax explicitly in his speech, but said he would defend the “tough decisions” his Government has made.