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

Starmer says most farmers won’t be affected by inheritance tax change as Clarkson tells rally it’s a ‘hammer blow’ – as it happened

Keir Starmer has said he is “very confident” that the “vast majority” of farmers will not be affected by the extension of inheritance tax. In an interview in Brazil, where he is attending the G20 summit, he told the BBC:If you take a typical case, which is parents who want to pass on their farm to one of their children … by the time you’ve built in the other income tax thresholds, it’s only those with assets over £3m that would begin to pay inheritance tax, and that’s why I’m very confident that the vast majority of farms will be totally unaffected.He also said rural communities needed the extra investment the budget would fund.I also say this; I know that in rural communities – I grew up in one – we also need really good schools, really good hospitals, and we need houses that people could afford to live in, and they were the measures that we invested heavily in the budget.In an interview with Sky News, asked if he was waging “class war” on wealthy landowners, Starmer repliedLook, It isn’t at all what we’re doing

Keir Starmer to restart UK-India talks after previous negotiations stalled

Keir Starmer is to restart the aborted UK-India trade talks in the new year after an agreement stalled amid disagreements over whisky tariffs and migration.No progress has been made on the deal since early this year after the last round of talks concluded. As prime minister, Boris Johnson promised a swift deal, but Rishi Sunak was said to be deeply uneasy with some of the provisions that had been negotiated by his predecessor. Talks were put on hold in March while both countries prepared for general elections.The deal was originally believed to be based on broad agreement for lower tariffs on whisky and cars from the UK and tariff reductions on Indian textiles, as well as more visas for tech workers and students