farm to fork summit 10 downing street farming politics tractor - Simon Dawson No 10 Downing Street

Source: Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street

When John McTernan, a former political secretary to Tony Blair and widely quoted New Labour insider, told GB News our country “doesn’t need small farmers”, I think we can assume he was indiscreetly voicing sentiments shared by the Cabinet.

True, when Keir Starmer was put on the spot at COP29, he robustly disagreed with McTernan’s remarks. He said it was important for farmers to prosper well into the future. But that rebuttal failed to convince when he had just announced a 20% shift away from meat and dairy products, within no fewer than five years, to hit his target for an 81% reduction in emissions.

Taken alongside Labour’s inheritance tax change, which will cull family farms, I’m inclined to agree with farmer Robin Milton that “there is absolutely no indication whatsoever of Labour supporting farming”.

In retrospect, Ed Miliband making a hash of eating a bacon sandwich looks like an early indication that New Labour represents a metropolitan elite, disconnected with ordinary people, especially in rural areas.

It’s becoming clear this government pursues the technocratic globalist agenda driven by the likes of the World Economic Forum and Bill Gates. They see farming as an obsolete dinosaur industry, best replaced, preferably before 2050, by synthetic, ultra-processed products concocted in labs and bioreactors.

 

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Along with the callous, almost vicious disregard for farmers expressed by McTernan, he also warned that “if the farmers want to go on the streets, we can do to them what Margaret Thatcher did to the miners”.

That’s an alarming comparison. The UK coal industry had competition – we had other ways of generating energy. But food isn’t coal. It has no substitute. We need it to stay alive. And small farmers, who generally produce food in traditional, often regenerative ways, are our best source.

The thought of a shared government vision to eradicate small farms makes my blood run cold. Good luck to beleaguered farmers taking on this crew.

In the face of sustained opposition, McTernan et al will likely try to characterise protesting farmers as far-right racists, simply because they urge us to buy British.

And, next thing you know, saying we should eat a diet that reflects our land’s productive capacity could be branded by our government as ‘hate speech’.

 

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