Farmers take festive tractors to London protest

A convoy of roughly 20 tractors adorned with Christmas lights descended on Westminster on 10 December to continue to put pressure on the government around changes to inheritance tax (IHT) and raise money for charity.

Farmers travelled from Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire and Leicestershire to take part in the event.

Will Finn-Kelcey, an arable farmer based near Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire, and one of the organisers, told Farmers Weekly that their biggest objective was to give something back to the public.

See also: Tractors seized during London farmer protest

“We’ve gone into London many times now since the IHT decision last October, and the public support has been phenomenal,” said Mr Finn-Kelcey

“A lot of farmers are very concerned about getting involved in any form of protests or what have you, because they didn’t want to upset the public.

“I wish more would come along, because the public is so with us, everybody is with us.”

The tractor run raised hundreds of pounds for a charity supporting homeless veterans.

Mr Finn-Kelcey said that the farmers had all been shocked by the levels of homelessness in London on previous visits and wanted to come together with the relevant armed forces charities to support homeless veterans.

Reminder to government

Mr Finn-Kelcey added that the event was also an opportunity to show the government that farmers aren’t going away in relation to the IHT challenge.

“It was to send a message to the government; We can come into London whenever we want.

“You’re not going to tell us what to do, and we’re going to keep coming.”

He said the Metropolitan Police were “fantastic” at the latest tractor run, after being “slightly heavy handed” at the Budget day farmer demonstrations on 26 November.

‘Disruptive’ 

Shadow Defra secretary Victoria Atkins wrote to the Metropolitan Police commissioner expressing serious concerns about how the Budget day farming protests were managed.

A response was received from commissioner Sir Mark Rowley on 9 December, which stated that previous large tractor-based farmer protests in central London had shown that the movements of the vehicles in, out and around central London at form up and dispersal were particularly disruptive to moving traffic.

Sir Mark said: “We therefore concluded that tractors on Whitehall could cause serious disruption to the emergency services, transport infrastructure and local hospitals, as well as to the surrounding area… that is why we prevented protesters from bringing them.”

He added that there was no form of political influence from government offices in the making of this decision.

Future protests

Further protests are expected to take place in Westminster on 16 December to coincide with votes on IHT as part of the Finance Bill.