This week, Rachel Reeves announced that farms will lose their inheritance tax exemption. When passing agricultural land to the next generation, from April 2026 farmers will pay 20 per cent tax on assets over £1 million, a seemingly generous allowance. But land values are high, whilst farming incomes are often modest. Many will be unable to afford tax demands running into the hundred of thousands.

When they were courting rural votes, Labour repeatedly claimed farmers would be supported. When he was in opposition, Steve Reed, now the Environment Secretary, explicitly ruled out that there were any plans for this tax change, stating "'we have no intention of changing" it.

Over 100 Labour MPs now represent rural seats, more than ever before. The wafer-thin majorities that shepherded Keir Starmer into Downing Street with a landslide majority are now looking more perilous than ever.

Writing in this newspaper today, Mr Reed says "food security is national security". He is right - but seems to have not thought through the consequences of his policy. By making it more expensive to produce food in the UK, this punitive political choice will either penalise consumers or jeopardise our food security.

Applying IHT to farms risks booting family farmers off their land. A model that has existed for centuries faces destruction in a generation. Rather than land being handed down within a family, it may have to be sold off and conglomerated into faceless agri-businesses instead. This tears at the fabric of rural Britain. Without these time-honoured custodians of the countryside, there would be no green and pleasant land. Is this the Britain Labour wants?