Jeremy Clarkson, 65, fumes ‘farmers are the new miners’ as he unleashes fresh attack on Rachel Reeves’ farm tax
Jeremy Clarkson has launched a furious attack on Labour’s economic plans, warning that British farmers are being treated like “the new miners” and left to suffer under a system they don’t understand.
The outspoken former Top Gear host compared the plight of today’s farmers to that of the miners during the 1984 strike, warning that Rachel Reeves’ proposals for agricultural policy will devastate rural communities.
Last autumn, the Chancellor announced plans to reform inheritance tax, confirming that while farms and agricultural assets worth under £1 million would remain exempt, anything above that threshold would face a 50 per cent relief- an effective tax rate of 20 per cent.
Dubbed the “tractor tax,” this change will end the longstanding inheritance tax exemption that has allowed family farms to pass from one generation to the next.
From 2026, farmers with land valued over £1 million will no longer be able to hand down their farms to their children tax-free. The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) has warned that as many as 75 per cent of farming families could be affected by the policy.
The impact of these changes has resulted in elderly farmers feeling like a burden on their families, according to the organisation.
In his latest column, Clarkson reflected on growing up in a mining community, drawing stark parallels between the political betrayal faced by miners back then and the sense of abandonment farmers feel today.
“I grew up in a mining area,” Clarkson wrote. “And I was surrounded, every time I went anywhere, by the men who made all this tick. The men who, frankly, made everything tick back then.”
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He described how mining was a way of life for entire families, and how the closure of pits wasn’t due to coal running out, but political decisions.
“The miners were consumed by a combination of intense sadness and rage. And I’m seeing the exact same sense of bewildered despair today, in the countryside, because the farmers are the new miners, pawns in a political game they don’t understand, and they are being absolutely battered.”
Clarkson, who has himself become a farmer, blasted Labour’s plan to limit government funding for large farms after 2026.
After Reeves’ announcement in October 2024, Clarkson was one of the most vocal critics of the new policy. He took to X to write, “Rachel Reeves. I literally daren’t comment,” before slamming the new Government as “hopeless.”
In November, he joined over 13,000 UK farmers in central London to protest the plans, calling on the Government to “back down”.
“Back down, back down, you know, if you make a mistake, we all do, and they have, be big enough to say we made a mistake here, and then back down,” he said during the demonstration to the BBC’s Newsnight.
Since then, the reality TV star has continued to push for change, repeatedly voicing his grim predictions for the future, warning that this could spell “the end” of British farming.
In his Sunday Times article, Clarkson continued by listing Labour’s policies that are hitting farmers hard, including carbon tax on fertiliser and the reclassification of the tax-free pick-ups that farmers use as vehicles, as well as the announcement that they will no longer be able to pass on their farms to their children.
“That’s the real killer. That’s what’s causing most of the despair, because farming is a bit like mining. You grow up on a farm, you work on it from the age of three, and then, one day, when your dad dies, you take it over. And now you can’t anymore.”
Clarkson painted a bleak picture of Labour’s vision for the countryside, warning that while Britain hesitates over nuclear power and relies on imported gas and wood to keep the lights on, the country is sitting on a trillion tons of untapped coal.