Sir Keir Starmer has distanced himself from comments made by a senior adviser to Tony Blair after he said “we don’t need small farmers” during a discussion about the fury among farmers towards the inheritance tax rises announced in the Budget.
John McTernan, who was the ex-Labour PM’s political secretary, sparked fury as he said family farming is “an industry we can do without”.
The party grandee was asked about planned protests by farmers over Rachel Reeves’ Budget, which will mean they have to pay 20 per cent of tax on inherited agricultural assets worth more than £1m from April 2026. The change is being dubbed the “tractor tax” and has sparked outrage among farmers, who say it will threaten the UK’s food security and lead to the closure of family farms.
Mr McTernan said: “If the farmers want to go on the streets – we can do to them what Margaret Thatcher did to the miners.”
Ms Thatcher used heavy-handed police tactics to break up miners’ strikes in the 1980s and effectively destroyed the mining industry.
And, doubling down, Mr McTernan told GB News: “It’s an industry we can do without.
“If people are so upset that they want to go on the streets and spread slurry then we don’t need small farmers.”
Sir Keir said he “totally disagrees” with Mr McTernan’s comments. And the prime minister added: “I am totally committed to supporting our farmers. I said it before the election and I say it after the election.
“So I totally disagree with those comments.”
And a Labour source told The Independent his comments are “offensive and wrong”. “He doesn’t have a role with the government or the party,” the source added.
Responding to Mr McTernan’s comments, Gareth Wyn Jones, a farmer in North Wales, said: “Oh my God, how crazy is he?”
Mr Wyn Jones said the UK’s food security would crumble without farmers, asking whether Mr McTernan believes supermarkets or the government are producing food without family farmers.
“Be careful my friend, you might be just awakening a sleeping giant, a sleeping giant that is feeding you every day,” he added.
And former Boris Johnson adviser Dominic Cummings, whose family owns a farm in Durham, said Mr McTernan’s comments showed Labour is planning to close down all small farmers “because they are a political enemy”.
He called for farmers to ignore police warnings about protests and “flood” Westminster and apply: “Pressure, pressure, pressure.”
Welsh Tory leader Andrew RT Davies said: “These comments are disgraceful but are sadly indicative of how many people in the Labour Party seem to feel.
“It’s clear that for many on the left, the anti-farmer agenda is a new frontier in the class war, whereby farmers are being punished for not sharing the metropolitan worldviews of those in London and other cities.
“I will always stand with our farmers, because like most people in Britain, I know that no farmers means no food.”
Thousands of farmers are set to descend on London later this month in protest against the tractor tax, with the Metropolitan Police having given the march the green light.