An MPs’ committee has called on the Labour government to delay changes to Inheritance Tax affecting farmers for a year – but farmers and the public should ask who’s really doing the shouting – and why.

Industry groups like the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) and the Country Landowners’ Association (CLA) are pushing hard to paint these reforms as a devastating blow to “small family farms.”

Tractors have rolled into Westminster. Farmers are in uproar.

But is this really about farmers?

The change at the heart of the controversy is the government’s decision to reduce the relief available on inherited agricultural assets worth more than £1 million — taxing them at 20 per cent, rather than exempting them entirely.

Critics say this threatens thousands of farms.

The government counters that it will only affect around 500 of the wealthiest estates annually.

The media — some of them, at least — are helping to stoke fear, claiming that up to 49 per cent of farmers could be affected.

But this claim doesn’t hold up. The new tax only kicks in above £3 million in total assets, thanks to retained allowances.

That leaves the vast majority of family farms untouched.

So what’s really going on?

As I explained in a previous article, this seems a strategic strike against wealthy individuals using farmland as a tax dodge — snapping up land they don’t farm, simply to shield their wealth from Inheritance Tax.

This isn’t about tractors and cows. It’s about loopholes and portfolios.

Before Labour’s reforms, farmland was a golden ticket for the rich: buy some acres, claim you’re “engaged in agriculture”, and avoid a 40 per cent tax on inheritance.

As a result, the price of farmland soared, pricing actual working farmers out of the market.

Young, aspiring farmers stood no chance.

But if farmland loses its tax-shield status, its artificial value crashes.

Suddenly, it’s no longer a financial asset — it’s just land.

And that is great news for real farmers.

The very people protesting this policy could soon find themselves in a much stronger position.

Prices will fall.

Land will return to its actual use value, not speculative fantasy.

Farming will become affordable again.

Yes, change brings uncertainty.

And yes, older farmers deserve support during the transition.

But the solution isn’t to protect the tax shelters of the ultra-wealthy.

It’s to ensure the system serves working farmers — not investors in Wellington boots.

And here’s the cynical twist: many of the media echoing panic about the “destruction” of British farming are failing to report the basic facts about the policy.

Ask yourself why.

Could it be that some editors, executives — even owners — have land stashed away in their portfolios?

Inheritance Tax reform is exposing a long-standing racket.

The Labour government – that has dragged its own name through the mud with policy after policy designed to attack the very people it should protecting – deserves credit for having the courage to take on this racket.

Now ministers must hold their nerve.

And farmers should resist the spin.

In a few years’ time, they might just look back and realise that this was the moment the land came back to them.