Nigel Farage excluded from farmer rally speakers amid fears over Brexit role

Nigel Farage was left out of the line-up of political leaders who spoke at the farmers’ protest outside Downing Street, amid concerns over his divisive role in Brexit and fears he would overshadow the event.Representatives of all parties were originally invited to speak, according to organisers of a protest at which tens of thousands of farmers listened to Kemi Badenoch, Ed Davey and other speakers, including the journalist Jeremy Clarkson.However, the Guardian understands that while the Reform UK leader was initially considered, organisers omitted him from the line-up because they did not want the protest to become the “Nigel Farage show”.Farmers wanted the event to be as unpolitical as possible because they wanted to give the Labour government a chance to change its mind on the highly unpopular changes to inheritance tax that mean farmers with assets over £1m will be subject to a 20% levy.They were also concerned Farage’s presence would be divisive, after Brexit resulted in trade deals with Australia and New Zealand that undercut farmers, and cuts to subsidies

Tories say Labour is weakening national security with plan to decommission drones, warships and helicopters – as it happened

James Cartlidge, the shadow defence secretary, accused the government of undermining national security with the defence cuts announced today. (See 3.10pm.)Responding to John Healey in the Commons, Cartlidge said:Whatever the chancellor’s true grasp of economics, she’s certainly been able to force her priorities onto the country, getting the MoD to scrap major capabilities before they’ve undertaken the department’s much vaunted strategic defence review.They’ve killed off North Sea oil, undermining our energy security; this week they are killing off the family farm and threatening our food security

Rural MPs urge government to reassure farmers over inheritance tax

Rural Labour MPs have called on the government to reassure worried farmers, in an attempt to quell the escalating row over inheritance tax on agricultural property.Thousands of farmers and landowners travelled to Whitehall on Tuesday to protest against the plans, which they say will force family farms to sell up in order to pay the new 20% rate on assets above a £1m threshold.At the rally, they booed the Labour party and said they had been betrayed and lied to. The environment secretary, Steve Reed, had promised farmers that he would not be implementing changes to agricultural property relief, and during the general election said reports that he was going to were “desperate nonsense”.Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, announced the changes to inheritance tax at the budget, saying they were a way to target rich people who put their wealth in land as a way of avoiding inheritance tax

Why disunity on the left spells trouble for Labour | Letters

Andy Beckett correctly concludes that there is political space to the left of the Labour party (Meet the groups trying to create a new leftwing party – and channel the energy missing from Starmer’s Labour, 15 November). The question is whether there is electoral space. He notes the succession of new leftwing parties over the past 30 years, a few of which had some short-lived success, though the history of splits on the left goes back more than a century.Nor is disillusion with Labour in power a recent phenomenon. The Guardian’s own Richard Gott stood for the Radical Alliance in the 1966 North Hull byelection

Starmer twice declines to directly condemn jailing of Hong Kong pro-democracy figures

Keir Starmer has twice declined to directly condemn the jailing of dozens of Hong Kong’s most prominent pro-democracy figures, less than 24 hours after meeting China’s president at the G20 summit.The UK prime minister was asked both during a BBC interview and at his press conference in Rio de Janeiro to respond to the jailing of the activists, including being asked if he would condemn the sentences directly, but he reiterated the importance of building bridges with China for the sake of economic growth.Starmer said that UK “mustn’t lose … the opportunity for our economy”.He was condemned by the former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith, who is subject to sanctions by Beijing, who said Starmer was “so desperate for trade they will turn a blind eye to all future atrocities”.Those jailed are among 47 people, known as the Hong Kong 47, who were charged in 2021 under the national security law

No hiding place for Labour’s farming minister as tweed army take over Whitehall | John Crace

It was a very civilised protest. The sort of protest you might expect from roughly 10,000 asset-rich, cash-poor millionaire farmers from all over the country. The police officers there just to redirect the traffic. Only the occasional shouted slogans to punctuate proceedings; most people were just happy to be there. “What do we want?” “To not pay inheritance tax on our farms