KEMI: LABOUR CONDUCTING AN ASSAULT ON RURAL LIFE

LABOUR is carrying out an “assault on rural Britain”, Kemi Badenoch has warned.

- By Katie Harris and Steph Spyro

The Tory chief renewed her attack on Sir Keir Starmer’s Government for its “cruel” and “unnecessary” inheritance tax raid as she visited a family farm in her seat.

Labour has been hit with a backlash for slapping inheritance tax on farms worth more than £1million.

Writing in the Express, Mrs Badenoch said: “Before last year’s general election, Keir Starmer looked farmers in the eye and promised he would protect their way of life. A year later and this Labour Government is conducting an assault on rural Britain.

"It started with the Family Farms Tax, the deeply damaging inheritance tax policy in Labour's first Budget that threatens the very existence of family farms.

"I have spoken to countless farmers across the country since Rachel Reeves announced her changes to Agricultural Property Relief, and they all tell me the same thing they don't think the Labour Party understands that farming is not just a job, it is a way of life and a deeply rooted tradition.

"Labour are destroying this tradition. Labour's ministers do not understand what it means to be self-employed or to risk everything on a harvest or a herd.

"They certainly do not understand what it takes to run a farm or the critical land management our farmers undertake." Mrs Badenoch, whose grandfather was a farmer, insisted that agriculture "is the backbone of this nation and must be cherished".