IT'S NOW MY LIFE, MY CHILDREN'S LIFE AND MY GRANDCHILDREN'S FUTURE AT STAKE

A WORRIED farmer has pleaded for Rachel Reeves to reverse her "brutal" inheritance raid. Ro Collingborn, 74, has warned the future of her children and grandchildren is at risk because of the policy which is causing "great distress".

- Steph Spyro

The gran said:

"For us, we've gone overnight from a position where we could pass our farm on to our children tax-free to one where they will be saddled with an enormous debt unless we pass on land and live for seven years." Speaking of her husband Joe, 75, she added: "It's not pleasant to have to start looking at each other to work out who will die first. It's now my life, my children's life and my grandchildren's future at stake, and this is causing great distress to me and my husband at a time of life when we should be coasting along surveying the fruits of success of our many years."

Ro was speaking out as thousands of farmers fear they will not be able to pass on their livelihoods. The Budget changes have already caused widespread anger, and further protests are planned outside supermarkets on Friday and in town centres next week.

She said: "Did Rachel Reeves actually act from a lack of knowledge or was it malicious intent? Just when we should be handing on to the next generation and enjoying our grandchildren, a bomb has gone off due to Rachel Reeves's changes...

"Like many farmers, we had a bad feeling in our stomachs and a realisation that our lives had been turned upside down forever." Her 180-acre Brinkworth Dairy Farm in Chippenham, Wiltshire, has been in the family for at least 125 years with a herd which was established in 1910. But it risks disappearing from the lives of Ro and Joe's grandchildren Eric, nine, Abel, 14, and Bede, 16.