Following the Chancellor’s Budget announcements impacting the farm sector the NFU Council has been building plans for a mass lobby on 19th November in Westminster.
The lobby will bring members to London for meetings with their MPs, so that the Government would be pressured by its own backbenchers.
Since the Budget, the NFU said it had been working “flat out” to make the case to Treasury and wider Government that the decision it has made to change Agriculture Property Relief and Business Property Relief must be overturned.
Demand for this event has been high, with 1,800 NFU members registering their intention to come. The organisers said they have tripled their capacity in the planned venue at Church House by having three rotations of 600 to ensure as many members as possible can attend.
Unable to make it any larger though, the NFU says it is determined to ensure more voices are heard: “Whilst our mass lobby event is at capacity and we are asking members who have not registered not to do so now, we want this to be the first event, not the only event, where you can be heard.
“If you’re not registered on the event, please don’t travel to London. There’s another opportunity to make clear how you feel.
“We’ve always said this event was just the start of this fight. If the Government listens to us, before or after the 19th, we’ll all be relieved. But if it doesn’t, this event will be followed by another, at which farmers and growers will demonstrate how we feel about this devastating policy. If we need it, that will be our show of mass unity and strength.
“If Government continues to refuse to listen, this will be step two.”
NFU has warned: “Ministers need to understand that we won’t get tired, that we won’t go away, that this campaign will go on for as long as this terrible decision stands. If they think we’ll give up, it just shows how much they don’t understand farmers.
“We hope every day that the Government does the right thing, but our message to them is we’re in the long fight. This tax cannot stand; for your sake, for your family’s sake, for farming’s sake and for Britain’s sake.”
