The NFU has criticised a farmer protest which forced the prime minister to cancel a speech as 'misjudged' and 'massively counter-productive'.
The union has issued a response to the demonstration in Milton Keynes on Thursday (13 February), which was organised by campaign group Farmers To Action.
A group of tractor-driving protesters forced the prime minister to leave a visit to a housing development early due to the noise of blaring horns.
After the visit, Keir Starmer appeared on Sky News and controversially said 'there is a choice' between NHS waiting lists coming down and maintaining the agricultural property tax relief for farmers.
The government's reform of agricultural property relief (APR) will take into effect from April 2026, meaning farms worth more than £1m will incur a 20% inheritance tax charge.
Responding to the Milton Keynes protest, the NFU stressed that it was not organised by the union and that it was 'not the way to achieve change'.
NFU President Tom Bradshaw said: “However high feelings are running in the farming community, actions by a group which deliberately disrupted a major speech by the prime minister were misjudged and, clearly, have been massively counter-productive.
“This was not an NFU event. The NFU has been leading a campaign to mitigate the damaging and inhumane impacts of the changes to inheritance tax on farms, building independent evidence, huge public support and political backing across parliament."
He added: "The NFU represents 44,000 farming businesses in England and Wales and we will speak with their voices next week – calmly and constructively.”
The union's annual conference will take place in London on 25 February, where it will stage a display of agricultural machinery and toy tractors as part of its ongoing campaign to halt the measures.
The NFU said this would be a symbolic gesture to show the toys "come from the children of Britain’s farming families who are being denied a future in the industry".
On Monday, thousands of farmers descended on Whitehall in central London - the third time since the autumn budget - to protest against the IHT move.
