‘Partial U-turn is nowhere near enough,’ say farmers who protested in London today
12th January 2026
“We just want our voices to be heard,” said farmers who attended today’s rally in Central London.
While farmers were driving around the Parliament Square, MPs were debating the Finance Bill as it entered the committee stage.
The demonstration was set to remind MPs and the public that the proposed inheritance tax changes do not go far enough and continue to threaten the future of family farms, UK food security, and elderly farming families caught up in the policy.
One of the organisers of today’s demonstration, Dan Willis, who owns Rookery Farms near Newbury, Berkshire, said: “We’re here because the government’s partial U-turn is nowhere near enough, and at the end of the day, we need to move to an area where we can actually be profitable.
“We can’t move to that with this elephant in the room, which is the inheritance tax. It is stopping all farm investments. We’ve got older members of the community who want to know basically when to die to pass their farm over, but that is not the right way to go.”
Mr Willis highlighted that agriculture is the “backbone of the country”; however, the Labour government has “attacked farmers way of life”, and they are no longer able to run profitable businesses.
“It’s an attack on our food system and our food security, and unless we start approaching and dealing with some of these important questions, we’re on a road to managing our imports and everything that’s coming into the country at lower standards than what we’ve done before. And the root of all that is back to IHT,” the farmer concluded.
‘I’d hate to be the first to sell the farm’
Toby Brown, a fifth-generation farmer from Berkshire, added: “If my dad passed away as of the 1st of April, I would now have a £400,000 bill, and that’s just not affordable to me.
“The farm doesn’t make enough money to put away £40,000 a year for the next 10 years, so I would have to sell the farm. And that’s something I can’t live with, really.
“I’d hate to be the first to sell it; it’s a long-standing history of my family. I don’t want to be the one to have to stop.”
Mr Brown added that “getting MPs on the farmers’ side” would be one of the victories the protesters hope for. The farmers were set to meet up with the politicians in Parliament this afternoon to discuss the future of British farming and present ideas that could boost farms’ profitability in the long run.
Today, 12th January, the MPs debated the Finance Bill, focusing on key tax changes like income tax rates, inheritance tax reliefs, and alcohol duty increases, with votes expected on various clauses or motions today and tomorrow, as the committee stage progresses, following the Bill’s second reading in December 2025.
READ MORE: Farmers gather in London as Finance Bill enters committee stage
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