Now farmers threaten chaos on the checkouts: ‘Extreme factions’ preventing Labour tax plans warn they might blockade grocery store depots ‘inside weeks’ – risking panic shopping for as cabinets empty
Farmers are planning a New Year assault on supermarkets following Labour‘s plans to tax them, according to reports.
Extreme factions of the farming community are plotting to block supermarket distribution centres with tractors across the country, the Daily Telegraph reported.
The disruption to supply chains would increase prices for consumers and leave shelves empty, like they have been during Lockdown when people raced to supermarkets to stock up on toilet paper and other household items.
Campaign sources told the paper they would ramp up their protests until stores reached a ‘complete shutdown’.
Farmers are furious after Labour subjected their assets to inheritance tax for the first time.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced plans to levy a 20 per cent inheritance tax on farmers’ assets worth more than £1million in her first Budget.
Farmers have taken to Westminster to protest against the changes, with Jeremy Clarkson and others joining the cause.
A national day of action is expected on January 25 with tractors expected to mass outside marginal Labour constituencies.
The farmers protest in December. Farmers are furious after Labour subjected their assets to inheritance tax for the first time
A supermarket distribution centre. Extreme factions of the farming community are said to be plotting to block supermarket distribution centres across the country
Sainsbury’s sorting depot. Campaign sources told the paper they would ramp up their protests until stores reached a ‘complete shutdown’
But more radical elements plan to blockade supermarket distribution centres unless the Government scraps the policy.
One told the Telegraph that the protests could happen as soon as mid-January.
They said: ‘The first time will be for a short period to show it can be done. Then a 12 or 24-hour shutdown, and ultimately if it gets that far, a complete shutdown until the Government come to the table.
‘It could ultimately shut down the economy, no food means serious chaos. The Government have picked a fight with the wrong sector.’
The Government is understood to have drawn up contingency plans to prevent supermarket shelves from lying empty, with former Transport Secretary Louise Haigh saying in November that food security was being treated as a priority.
Andrew Opie, director of food and sustainability at the British Retail Consortium, told the Telegraph that retailers were monitoring the situation and could react to disruption and that they were working hard to ensure customers weren’t impacted.
Merseyside arable farmer Olly Harrison, an unofficial spokesman for the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), told MailOnline on November 6: ‘Never before have farmers been so united – sadly it’s in anger over this issue and they will not take it lying down, especially after the worst harvest ever.
The YouTube and Instagram star added: ‘Most don’t do this job for the money, they do it for the kids, and taking this right away through poorly thought out Government policy is horrifying.
Empty shelves at a Tesco Extra store in Worthing when the pandemic started in March 2020
Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced plans to levy a 20 per cent inheritance tax on farmers’ assets worth more than £1million in her first Budget
Empty shelves are seen in a Sainsbury’s in Telford when the pandemic began in March 2020
‘We already risk our home with the weather every day playing snakes and ladders, and now the Government has just cut the rungs off the ladders.
‘This decision has already proved itself to be costing farmers more than money.’
Mr Harrison also told The Times: ‘They say we are only ever four meals away from anarchy.
‘What Rachel Reeves doesn’t understand is how fragile the food supply chain is, and we saw in Covid how it only took a few days of panic buying to cause shortages.
‘If we stop goods leaving farms for a day or two it will happen faster than you think.’
Simon Roberts, the boss of Sainsbury’s, was the first major supermarket boss to speak out amid fears that changes to farm inheritance rules could harm the country’s ability to grow its own food.
He said last month: ‘British farmers work incredibly hard to make sure that they can provide the foods that everyone wants to buy, that are British produced.’
Banners held outside the Northern Farming Conference in Hexham, Northumberland, in November
Simon Roberts (pictured) is the first major supermarket boss to speak out amid fears that changes to farm inheritance rules could harm the country’s ability to grow its own food.
‘I would urge the Government to work closely with farmers to make sure they listen to their concerns, because we need a resilient, successful, productive food system to make sure that we’re producing what we need here.’
Labour must ‘listen to them and try and find a solution,’ the head of the UK’s second largest grocer urged.
A Government spokesman said: ‘Our reform to Agricultural and Business Property Relief will impact around 500 estates a year.
‘For these estates, inheritance tax will be at half the rate paid by others, with ten years to pay the liability back interest free. This is a fair and balanced approach which fixes the public services we all rely on.’
