Furious Jeremy Clarkson unleashes scathing rant over Budget as farmers ‘struggle to cope’

Jeremy Clarkson has warned the government that the Budget could be the ‘last straw’ for farmers ‘struggling to cope’.

The former Top Gear presenter, has become a voice for farmers after his Amazon Prime series Clarkson’s Farm took off in 2021.

He’s been branded a ‘hero’ in rural circles, after revealing the trials and tribulations of running his Diddly Squat Farm in the Cotswolds.

There, Clarkson shows the realities of agriculture, from economic uncertainty to the horrors of British weather, as well as some the devastating moments with his beloved animals on the farm.

He’s now spoken out after the Budget, where Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced a move to apply inheritance tax to family farms.

The Government announced £5 billion for England’s farming budget over the next two years, maintaining the £2.4 billion current level for 2024/25 and 2025/26, and this year also includes a £200 million underspend from previous years.

Clarkson has been left raging, saying the fact that farmland is no longer exempt from inheritance tax could be ‘be the last straw for farmers who are already struggling to cope’.

After seeing an image of Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Reeves, he went on in his column in The Sunday Times: ‘I was overcome with something not far removed from fury. Because, if the word on the rural grapevine about a farmer’s suicide is accurate, their policy, born of bitterness and envy, may already have tipped one man over the edge. And there they were grinning.’

He went on: ‘In the past five years agricultural land has become the must-have accessory for people in suits. And because investment bankers tend to be quite rich, the prices have gone berserk.

‘Round where I live, people have been paying £30,000 an acre. That means a 500-acre farm now goes for £15 million. And that doesn’t include the house. Or the barns. Or the equipment. That’s just the price of the land.’

Clarkson added that farmers have been ‘caught in the crossfire’ and thousands of farmers’ children will have to sell the land in the future, despite learning everything about taking it over throughout their lives.

Speaking of Reeves, he added: ‘I think history will see her as the most stupid, blinkered idiot ever to occupy No 11.

‘I’ll stop there, though. Because if I went on, I’d be guilty of a hate crime, and these days that’s a bigger offence than paedophilia or punching a constituent in the throat.’

This comes after Clarkson called the Budget ‘hopeless’ and claimed farmers have been ‘shafted’.

He took to X earlier this week and said: ‘Rachel Reeves. I literally daren’t comment.’

In response to one comment, he went on: ‘We have a new government. It’s turning out to be hopeless.’

He later urged his followers to not ‘despair’ and hope for change in the next General Election.

He wrote: ‘Farmers. I know that you have been shafted today. But please don’t despair.

‘Just look after yourselves for five short years and this shower will be gone.’

Location, Location, Location star Kirstie Allsopp also fumed over the Budget, writing on X: ‘Rachel Reeves had f**ked all farmers, she has destroyed their ability to pass farms on to their children, and broken the future of all our great estates, it is an appalling decisions which shows the government has ZERO understanding of the what matters to rural voters.’

In the comments, she added: ‘Tenants will lose their farms as a result of this.’

One person replied saying: ‘Why should farms be passed down without inheritance tax when all other property is including in IT?’ to which Kirstie said: ‘Because we’ve need people to work on the land that know the land and have an investment in it, it is a 7 day a week, 24 hour a day job.’

Earlier this year, Clarkson – who has even changed the law thanks to his TV series – admitted the farming landscape has become ‘risky’, digging deeper into the finances of it.

After a competition with his co-star Kaleb Cooper to see if money could be made ‘out of farming bits of the farm that aren’t farmed,’ Clarkson explained: ‘What we really did it for was to highlight the enormous cost that farmers face just to try and get food out of the ground.

‘So, ordinarily, you’d probably spend on the farm like this £40,000 in seed, fertiliser, slug pellets, and all of the diesel, and various things you need to grow food. Well, last year here it was £108,000 we had to spend.’

Clarkson added: ‘It’s a bit like if you go to a casino and it’s a £2 minimum bet, you can have fun with your mates. You know, you have two quid here, two quid on the roulette table.

‘What if they make it a £500 minimum bet? You’re not going to do it. It’s too risky.’

‘And the farm is getting to that point where it’s too risky,’ he confessed.

‘You just sit there,’ Clarkson added. ‘If I invest £108,000 and then the weather’s bad, I’ve lost a lot, you know?

‘So, that’s really why we did it and I hope it worked well. I hope farmers enjoy it anyway.’

A version of this article was originally published on October 30, 2024.