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Keir Starmer has been warned to expect more disruption from angry farmers after Holyhead port in North Wales became the second to be blockaded within 24 hours last night.
Farmers turned up in a convoy of tractors at around 11pm and stayed until 3am in a stand-off to prevent access to one of the main ports serving Ireland.
It followed a slow-drive protest at Dover ferry port on Wednesday as protests continue against the so-called family farm tax or tractor tax from the Budget.
Last week more than 10,000 farmers and their supporters descended on Westminster to express their anger over changes in inheritance tax in chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Budget to include agricultural land.
Welsh farmer and popular Youtuber Gareth Wyn Jones, one of the leaders behind the protests, told The Independent: “There will be more to come if the government don’t listen.”
One of the videos he published on Twitter last night was tagged: “Don’t p**s off farmers.”
The protest forced heavy goods vehicles to queue for hours outside the port unable to board ferries across the Irish Sea. The congestion was cleared by 4am.
The new inheritance tax laws will impact farms worth more than £1 million with a taxable rate of 20 per cent. The Treasury claims it only affects 28 per cent of farms, with ministers arguing that with tax allowances the real value will be £3 million before farms are affected.
But Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) figures suggest up to 66 per cent could be affected.
Ms Reeves has described her changes as “fair and proportionate”, with Labour arguing it would catch millionaires who they believe bought up agricultural land to avoid inheritance tax.
National Farmers’ Union (NFU) president Tom Bradshaw had suggested the government “might soften” on the family farm tax after a private meeting with Sir Keir Starmer.
But in PMQs on Wednesday, Sir Keir made it clear that the government does not intend to back down.
He said: “We set out our position at the Budget, which was just set out. We’re fixing the foundations. We’re dealing with the £22 billion black hole that they left.
“I’m not going to write the next five years of budgets here at this despatch box but we said we wouldn’t hit the payslips of working people. We’ve passed the Budget. We’ve invested in the future, and we’ve kept that promise.”
He has previously said the “vast majority of farms and farmers” will be unaffected by the changes announced in the Budget.
