🥀 Rural communities can’t afford Labour – it’s time to AXE the Family Farm & Family Business taxes.

Andy Burnham must get a grip of the real challenges facing our rural communities. But stacking a new fertiliser tax on top of the SFI shambles, giving away our food laws to the EU and hammering hard-working families with vindictive death taxes isn’t a strategy, it’s pushing British farming to the brink.

Tonight, Labour MPs voted AGAIN for the Family Farm Tax and Family Business Tax. Eight chances to do the right thing. Eight times they chose to hammer farmers and family businesses. Labour must listen. At the Budget, axe these vindictive taxes.

🥀 Nearly 3 weeks since Labour’s environmental policies collapsed with the shambolic SFI scheme. Defra Ministers should come to Parliament today, (the first opportunity possible), to explain why and how the department’s flagship scheme has gone so badly wrong.

Climate change is happening, nature is in decline and sticking with the failing status-quo is a choice. Only the @Conservatives are choosing to take the bold action required to bring back common sense and real change for our countryside and coast. 🧵

The custodians of the countryside can deliver much better outcomes for nature than the current status-quo. Only the @Conservatives are choosing to take the bold action required to bring back common sense and real change for the countryside.

The @Conservatives are bringing back common sense to Defra so it works again for our countryside and coast. #CPC26

Our climate is changing, nature is in decline and sticking with the failing status-quo is a choice. Only the @Conservatives will change this. Here’s the first step in our common-sense plan for countryside. 👇

Great evening with @CAupdates & @ConRuralForum at #CPC26. 👀Stay tuned tomorrow at 12:15pm as I set out our vision to bring back some common sense for the countryside…

£53 million for 500,000 trees might sound a lot but to put that in perspective… a landowner just told me they planted 1.5million trees over 3 years for just 3% of that Government budget. Yep. That’s x3 more trees AND 97% cheaper. After the SFI26 shambles, Labour is spraying around more taxpayers’ money with no measuring of proper outcomes for nature.

There is something deeply unpleasant about how this Labour Minister views rural Britain. She is, by the way, a Defra Minister so has responsibility for the very communities she apparently abhors, including pubs. Oh, and she also represents a rural seat in Suffolk with lots of lovely-looking pubs. Thank you to everyone who has posted photos of their local. Whilst it has brightened my day to see trusty four-legged pub companions all over social media (Zuzu looking brilliant, @kevinhollinrake), as well as the mickey-taking this Minister’s comments deserve, this is sadly just another example of the disconnect between Labour MPs and the countryside. Earlier this month in PMQs, the Prime Minister made some throw-away comment about the role of the Defra PPS. He later apologised via a TikTok video (so that’s ok then). But it revealed his instincts. This government neither knows nor cares about rural and farming communities. Further evidence of this is the decision by the Defra Secretary of State to run their shambolic version of SFI on a first-come, first-served basis for the first time ever. That was her choice and it has consequences for farmers and nature: thousands of farmers missed out on this massively cut budget (another Labour decision) and so they won’t be able to afford to carry out the nature improvements they were planning. The Countryside Alliance has established that there are at least 27 Labour policies that are having, or will have a significant - and bad - impact on rural communities. We saw it with their vindictive Family Farm and Family Business Taxes, which every rural Labour voted for multiple times, putting their own careers before their constituents’ livelihoods, homes and wellbeing. It doesn’t have to be this way. With common sense, ambition and care, our rural and coastal communities can flourish and our rural way of life can thrive. It just won’t happen with this bunch of Leftist lanyard-wearers who feel threatened by an image of a country pub with a roaring fire and a lovely dog. The choice is stark between the Welfare Party of grievance, offence and scornful judgements, and the modern Conservative Party in which @KemiBadenoch and our team are proud of our rural and coastal communities, have a laugh, create serious policies and can enjoy a pie and a pint with our pooches.

Over 100 Conservative MPs have called for answers and action after the shambolic managment of SFI26 👇

🚨Raising the alarm back in July on Labour’s EU negotiations. SPOILER: it’s not good news for British farmers & food producers.

Too many people are unaware of the serious repercussions Labour’s EU negotiations will have on our UK food, farming and drink sectors. Labour is conducting these Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) negotiations in secret, without a clear mandate or firm red lines. Even more concerning, they have barely consulted the businesses most affected. Instead, they seem intent on going full steam ahead, handing over control of our regulations and leaving British consumers and businesses dangerously exposed. That’s why the @Conservatives are raising the alarm. We want to promote and protect our farmers, food producers and scientists. It is not about the past or re-litigating the referendum. It is about our future: the cost of food in our baskets and our ability to feed ourselves in an increasingly volatile world. It is about fairness and avoiding unfair competition with heavily-subsidised EU farmers – especially since Labour have cut the farming budget and stripped support from our own farmers. We must recognise our national strengths in agriculture and veterinary standards from Precision Breeding to world-leading animal welfare standards. Listen to some of the concerns the sector have shared with me and my analysis on Labour’s claims here 👇

🥔 British potatoes. Just one of the casualties from Labour’s upcoming ‘EU-reset’.