MSP gives ‘no surrender’ on family farm tax battle cry
A local farmer and MSP has warned that the agricultural community is untied in its opposition to the family farm tax.
Buckie-based Highlands and Islands Conservative MSP Tim Eagle, himself a sheep farmer, has said that he has never seen such unified opposition from the sector as has been presented to the controversial measure from the UK Labour government.
Mr Eagle, the Conservative Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, who made a stir when joining a Holyrood debate last year remotely from his lambing shed, made his remarks after NFU Scotland rescheduled its Stop The Farm Tax rally to February 1-2.
New figures revealed that the tax changes will affect 75 per cent of farms with more than 50 hectares of acres of land.
He said: “I have never seen the farming and crofting community as determined to come together and fight for its industry.
“Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have effectively detonated a tax bomb which is an existential threat to the future of family businesses the length and breadth of the country.
“Farmers from across the United Kingdom are now united as they never have been before in the face of this betrayal, and the deceptions about its impact which even now ministers are seeking to propagate.
“We will not be giving in, and the fight goes on and will continue until Starmer and Reeves come to their senses.”