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The Farmers Who Won’t Give Up | UK Column Interviews · UK Column Radio

0:07
Welcome to very hard working farmers, British farmers to this
0:13
to this interview. I've got Jeff Pomeroy from Devon
0:17
and also Ben Vere from Devon. And I just you know, we, we met
0:21
at the at the protest. I know I'd met you before we had
0:25
a a chat at the protest and the protest wasn't really it didn't
0:29
work out exactly the way it was meant to.
0:32
So can you just elaborate on that?
0:34
You too. Well, basically we had been in
0:39
discussions with the the Met Police for over a month and we
0:45
had had quite a few negotiations and come to several agreements
0:50
really which is going to allow us to go in and protest and make
0:55
a reasonable statement that sort of would have got some points
1:00
across and perhaps rallied a little bit of let's say general
1:06
public support. And the logistics are incredibly
1:12
long winded and difficult to get tractors from all around the
1:14
country into London. So lots of pre preparation, lots
1:19
of machinery loaded onto low loader lorries which needed to
1:23
be pre booked and paid for and lots of actual tractors on roads
1:29
that had to sort of travel for several hours.
1:32
So they, some of them had left were certainly committed.
1:36
And then last minute we were told by the Met Police late
1:39
afternoon the day before that it was, it was not to go ahead.
1:45
And we were not allowed to bring any tractors or or in fact farm
1:48
vehicles into the centre of London, which split the whole
1:53
movement pretty much right down the middle.
1:55
Because half the farmers did sort of not come.
2:01
They were scared off. And half of the farmers, some of
2:05
which were fully committed and had spent money and others, it
2:09
gave them even more resolve to go in because they were they
2:12
were quite upset that why the farmers protest should be shut
2:16
down when there are protests almost every day in London.
2:19
Exactly. So do you feel that, that, that
2:22
it was a, a, it was really an assault, a yet another assault
2:25
on, on, on the farmers? Because actually, it was.
2:28
It was meant to divide and conquer.
2:30
Yeah, definitely. I think there was a certain
2:32
element of that. It may even have been a tactic
2:37
to try to certainly divide and conquer, but also to perhaps
2:43
rile up the farmers a little bit.
2:45
The ones that were, you know, because there was a certain
2:47
amount of animosity, if you like, towards the idea that it
2:53
should be cancelled last minute. It was very unfair.
2:56
And it could have well been a tactic that they used on purpose
3:01
because they had plenty of time to actually say, you know, a
3:03
week before they could have said, no, it's not going to,
3:05
it's not going to go ahead. Of course.
3:09
And, and Ben, how was it for you that day?
3:11
I mean, it must have been a big shock really when they suddenly
3:14
pulled the rug from underneath you and said no, you're not
3:16
coming into Whitehall. I can't speak for them, but
3:19
there was, you know, several, several individuals up country
3:23
there who'd put in a, a a lot of time.
3:25
And you know, Jeff and I, we both, we both know them and
3:27
communicate with them. They put in a a lot of time in
3:31
organising where these people were going to have their
3:35
tractors delivered to and how they were going to set off.
3:37
And, and just the coordination of the thing takes a lot of
3:41
time, especially because apologies, especially because a
3:46
lot of these guys, as Jeff has said, they have to travel a long
3:48
distance and that takes time. It's not something that can be
3:51
turned off at the drop of a hat. So when you get that that call
3:55
last minute, you know there's a Commonwealth tractors coming
3:58
down from Yorkshire who they were already on the road.
4:01
They're not going to stop halfway down and turn around
4:03
sort of thing. It's just not in their nature.
4:06
Absolutely. And and what was so awful is
4:09
that I, I remember, I mean I did interview quite a lot of farmers
4:12
that day and one of them, a particular farmer from Dorset,
4:15
had brought his tractor up and he was told he couldn't take it
4:17
into Whitehall. So he parked it up near the
4:20
National Gallery and later on I saw him being arrested and the
4:25
thing being put on a low loader. So they were impounding tractors
4:29
at great cost to the farmers, having, you know, made that
4:34
decision themselves, You would have thought that they wouldn't
4:37
be so hard on them, wouldn't, would you?
4:38
But no, they, they fined them, they arrested them, they
4:42
impounded their tractors. I just thought it was absolutely
4:46
off scale unfair, you know, really, really unfair.
4:51
It certainly, it certainly highlighted quite an interesting
4:57
lack of unity, for want of a better description, in inside
5:00
the Metropolitan Police because the the phrase of the left hand
5:04
not talking to the right was never more apparent than that
5:07
day. You know, there were individuals
5:09
who were threatened with arrest or or even having vehicles
5:13
impounded if they didn't move the vehicle, having only just
5:17
been told by a separate officer to leave their vehicle there and
5:22
walk away sort of thing. So the, the disjointed nature of
5:25
it, which I'm sure you know, organisationally from their
5:28
point of view was because of the last minute nature of it.
5:31
And you know, the lack of the lack of time between the
5:36
decision and the event didn't just affect us as the
5:39
protesters, it also effects, you know, the actual officers on the
5:42
ground. So they're they're put in a
5:44
position where it's very difficult to manage a situation
5:47
that could have completely been avoided.
5:49
And obviously, you know, you were there.
5:51
It was budget day, you know, we were waiting for Rachel Reeves
5:54
to to give us the information about the budget.
5:58
And, you know, you really most of the most of the farmers that
6:01
were there were really the most, the worst thing that they were
6:04
dealing with was inheritance tax.
6:07
I know the farmers have a lot of challenges, so can you just sort
6:11
of put it into perspective about which ones are worse than it?
6:15
I think it is an inheritance tax, if I'm right.
6:18
Yeah. What, what, What are the
6:19
challenges at the moment for the farmers?
6:22
Yes, certainly as you've, as you, as you've rightly touched,
6:27
there are, there are a multitude of issues at the moment which
6:31
which we can touch on stemming from subsidy changes and, and
6:36
market issues. But the, the, the reason for the
6:39
large uptake in protests and the, you know, the wider
6:42
engagement of the, our community is the changes to, to
6:45
inheritance tax. So just as an example, I'm just
6:50
going to kind of run through a super brief example, but all of
6:54
the figures that I'm used are pulled from the government's
6:57
website. So this is information that is
7:00
available to the exchequer when they when they've created these
7:05
tax laws because it's their information.
7:08
So the pre change the way it would have worked is a working
7:13
farm. You have your husband and wife,
7:15
for example, maybe the wife's passed away is the husband left,
7:19
he passes the farm on to his children when he passes away.
7:23
Then as it's a working farm, agricultural property relief
7:27
provides a 100% relief from inheritance tax because working
7:31
asset and that covers your your land and your buildings.
7:35
And then business property relief, which is BPR that would
7:39
have covered the working assets of the farm such as livestock or
7:43
machinery or grain in stores. Things to that effect the the
7:50
changes now result miss bizarre split between what the
7:59
government's own data suggests and what they are claiming.
8:04
So if we use their dot.gov figures, an average farm size in
8:09
the UK, this is UK wide based across livestock and arable is
8:13
87 hectares around about 215 acres, which are an average UK
8:19
wide land price of 8900 gives an average farm value.
8:25
Government figures again 1.9 million.
8:28
So to work that through there's a return on capital investment.
8:32
So how much money that a an average farm would actually
8:38
produce? It runs depending on the year
8:41
anywhere between nought and 1.2% which is a pretty dire compared
8:48
to to to other businesses. But that's kind of the way it
8:53
is. Your 1.9 million there
8:59
apologies. Just includes land and
9:00
buildings. So we'll set aside the the
9:04
vehicles and the livestock for a moment.
9:09
After reliefs after reliefs you are.
9:14
So the average farm here is is attempting to fund a tax bill
9:21
that is potentially 3 to 4 times it's return, which even over a
9:29
10 year period is clearly not viable.
9:34
So this this claim from the exchequer that that only a
9:40
multi, you know, a minority of farms will be affected or it's
9:43
only going to the number seems to change on how many they claim
9:46
will actually be affected per year.
9:49
Seems wildly unlikely when their own average figures suggest
9:53
otherwise. Which I think is the crux of why
9:58
there's so much pressure and and sentiment building in the rural
10:07
community, because the the actual on the ground experience
10:10
of all these people is so vastly different from what's being
10:14
being claimed by the state. So there's a big disconnect
10:17
there that that the state are saying one thing and the reality
10:20
is that farmers are impoverished.
10:22
Actually, it sounds like it's, yeah, it's going to completely
10:26
destroy farming. And The thing is that people do
10:30
have this perception. All the farmers, all they're,
10:32
you know, they're rich, they're land owners.
10:34
It's absolute rubbish. I mean, all the farmers I spoke
10:36
to, they said, you know, we're in debt, you know, we've got
10:40
machinery we're still paying for, you know, the, the land,
10:43
you know, some when you have bad weather, you don't get the
10:46
yields, all this kind of thing. So it, it is a fallacy that,
10:50
that farmers are rich. And that's, that's a lot of the
10:52
arguments of people They're protesting again, those rich
10:55
farmers. It's not true, is it?
10:58
I just looked it up for clarification, but so the the
11:00
death for figures, which is the government department for for
11:04
farming and rural affairs. They're farm business survey
11:07
gives a return on capital employed for the 2324 financial
11:13
year of of a minus. So that means if, if you had
11:17
capital employed of of 2,000,000, for example, then I
11:22
can't do that maths quickly and off the top of my head to my, to
11:25
my shame, but you're, you're, you're not, you're making no
11:29
profit. So the the average return on
11:31
capital invested for the 2324 financial year was a negative.
11:35
Basically farmers and for, for, I would say probably for the
11:39
last decade, maybe even 20 years, they always borrow the
11:44
maximum amount they can because that's their way of running
11:47
their business and, and expanding, you know, numbers
11:50
just basically to sort of keep their head, keep, keep their
11:53
heads above water. And, and so they will actually,
11:57
you know, the bank owns the, the farm because they've, they've
12:00
basically put the deeds in and borrowed as much, as, as much as
12:02
they can. On top of that, the big shiny
12:05
tractors, they don't buy, go in and buy them outright.
12:08
They're, they're basically on purchase hire or some, some sort
12:13
of agreement. And because, you know, most
12:16
farmers have got things to sell throughout the, the months or
12:19
seasons, then you know, they're just making monthly payments on
12:22
those. And farmers have had to go back
12:25
to the bank. They've had to pay for re
12:27
evaluations because land has gone up significantly over the
12:32
last decade or so. Many farmers have had re
12:36
evaluations done so that they could borrow a little bit more.
12:40
And that's how they've been surviving because it we've been
12:42
at this sort of 0 state for quite a while now.
12:45
What I've, what I've noticed is that, I mean, I've looked at the
12:48
sustainable farming incentive documents and it looks as though
12:53
unless you diversify and, and move away from actually
12:56
producing food, you don't make any money.
12:59
You're expected to, you know, put renewables on your land, you
13:04
know, whether it's solar farms, wind farms, whatever it is, and
13:07
create businesses on your land, whether it's herbal lays or I
13:12
don't know, some people have gone into forest schools and,
13:16
and all sorts of, of things that aren't about food production.
13:20
So have you, have you seen that amongst your farming community?
13:24
The smaller farms, especially the the some of the monoculture
13:28
farms that they're, they're too big to to do that kind of thing.
13:33
But lots of the ones that are really struggling have had to
13:35
sort of diversify in different ways.
13:38
Yeah, sure. And, and do they get, do they
13:40
get their subsidies taken away if they don't diversify?
13:43
Is that, was that one of the things or was it, were they, was
13:47
it just that they had to? In, in a, in a sense, yes, it's
13:53
a slightly more, what they've done is quite nuanced.
13:58
So sort of since, since the, since the end of the, of the war
14:02
of the Second World War, the subsidy programme has been
14:06
around in one form or another. Originally it came in to promote
14:11
production, to bolster domestic food supply, and then it went
14:16
through various changes. Eventually, I can't remember the
14:20
year exactly, but after rationing and after the
14:23
production spike had been encouraged, it then became a
14:26
programme to keep the domestic food price suppressed for the
14:30
population to allow the kind of economy to grow and consumerism
14:35
to become easier to foster because that average household
14:39
was then spending less money on food.
14:41
That subsidy programme sometime around the turn of the century,
14:47
I'm not exactly sure of the year.
14:49
It's to do with the the European Union.
14:52
The, the the central agricultural policy policy is is
14:56
then when this green element started to sneak in and
15:00
initially it wasn't quite as avert as it was now.
15:03
It was just in the form of leaving what they called set
15:08
aside at the time. So a portion of your field, I
15:12
believe it was 6 metres, Jeff, correct me if I'm wrong, it was
15:15
a six metre strip around fields that would be left for Wilding
15:20
purposes basically. And that existed for a number of
15:25
years up until Brexit and then various transition phases of
15:30
schemes, which led to to, as you touched on what we have now,
15:34
which is called the sustainable farming incentive and exactly
15:38
that it's incentive. So they're they're structured in
15:41
such a way that it is optional. However, the state with the
15:45
other hand has created an environment where it is very
15:49
difficult to be a financially viable farm strictly on food
15:55
production terms. So although it's not overt, you
16:00
are in a situation as an AG business where in all likelihood
16:04
you do need to participate in some form of scheme just to keep
16:09
your cash flow. Basically to keep your cash flow
16:13
and to keep your head above water because it's not as simple
16:19
as being able to purely make money for food production, which
16:22
is a bizarre sentence to say. It is.
16:25
It is really bizarre because you know what, what happens to food
16:29
security if there's no food being produced?
16:32
So this appears to be a concerted effort by our
16:36
government to destroy the food, the food production.
16:41
And I mean, we know that they've got ideas about vertical
16:45
farming, super farms run by robotics, all of that kind of
16:49
thing. Do you think that this is a way
16:50
of getting rid of our farmers in order to bring that agenda in?
16:54
Very much so, yeah. I think it's of course the ones
16:59
that are, that are already, let's say super farms are not
17:02
super farms, but they're, they're monocultures farms.
17:05
So they could be, they could have a 7 or 800 cows or they're
17:08
committed to 2000 acres of, of, of wheat or, or you know,
17:13
cereals. They've got all the machinery
17:16
and all the setup to do that and they can't get out of it.
17:19
They're, they're in a position now where they're committed
17:21
100%. So they're very easy to
17:24
manipulate and control actually. And they, and, and the volume
17:28
means they can, that they survive off of small margins
17:32
because you've got that massive turnover.
17:34
But you know, this is, this is where we've gone wrong over the
17:37
last 7080 years where a farm might be only 100 acres, but it
17:43
would be mixed and a farmer would rotate his crops.
17:47
He would have more than one kind of livestock.
17:50
And then if markets fluctuated, he won't say, Oh dear, the, you
17:55
know, the land market is terrible.
17:57
Thank goodness that milk price is still OK because I've, I
17:59
could still milk my 40 cows. It all worked very well in
18:03
harmony together because one complements the other as well.
18:08
And as soon as you've gone out of that and into monoculture,
18:11
you, your challenges are, are very different because you have
18:16
to get it right every time. You've got, you know, disease
18:21
issues which build up and can be devastating in livestock or in
18:25
cereals and then you have to deal with all of that.
18:28
So the rotation is kind of gone. The the pleasure has gone out of
18:33
farming, I think massively. If I could just round back to
18:37
the subsidised food side of it just quickly because I think
18:44
it's really important that the general public then the British
18:47
are probably, it's the same through Europe, but certainly in
18:50
Britain we have had really cheap food for a very long time and
18:54
that's because the government has subsidised that food.
18:58
Now it's been subsidised by giving farmers incentives to
19:02
produce food or, or buoying up that, that, you know, the lack
19:08
of income with some form of subsidy to, to, to keep us doing
19:13
what we're doing. So that gets passed on.
19:17
And it's, it's quite odd to think that if you go to
19:22
countries that are that down on the equator that can grow food
19:26
all year round, it's, you know, very fertile soils and you would
19:32
expect them to be, you know, basically having really cheap
19:35
food. I got some figures that I've
19:37
just taken straight off the Internet, which for instance
19:42
currently Indonesia spends 28% of their of their pay packet on
19:48
food, Thailand spends 35% of their pay packet on food,
19:52
Vietnam spends 70% of their pay packet on food.
19:57
And currently the UK is 11.2 and that's risen sharply over the
20:03
last couple of years with inflation, but it's still
20:06
extremely well subsidised. So I think there's going to have
20:10
to be a shift in understanding a priority.
20:13
Farmers do not want subsidies. Farmers do not want handouts.
20:18
They basically want a fair price for their food and to be able to
20:23
stand alone as a as a business, we don't, we don't want
20:26
government support. We should, we should not be in
20:29
this situation at all. To jump off of that, Jeff, the
20:32
other thing to remember as you just touched on, the food price
20:36
in this country has risen sharply.
20:39
And, and although still a low percentage of the average pay
20:42
packet, that increase is not being seen on farm yet.
20:47
It is starting to trickle in in in some beef and lamb sectors, I
20:51
accept. But as a wider picture, a
20:54
broader thing, that increase is all disappearing into this large
20:58
bloated middleman of the supermarket sector.
21:02
And it's all very unsure where a lot of this stuff goes.
21:06
You end up with supermarkets taking a fairly inordinate sum
21:11
percentage of food price and yet still being able to sell New
21:16
Zealand land discounted for 10 pence on the kilo and obscene
21:21
things like this. So there's there is something
21:24
fundamentally wrong with the food structure in this country
21:27
and it's resulting in neither end of the chain getting a good
21:31
deal, neither the producer or the consumer.
21:34
That's true. Just a quick another figure to
21:39
give an example. I just looked it up again today.
21:41
The basic milk price retail out of the supermarket today is
21:45
£1.05 per litre. So that's just a, that's a basic
21:51
milk. It's nothing special, it's just
21:53
a, it's just a standard pasteurised litre.
21:57
The supermarkets basically have been dropping their prices or
22:03
it's certainly the the processors have which will be
22:06
passed on to the supermarkets and their predictions.
22:09
Now that, and certainly one buyer of fresh milk will be
22:14
paying the farmers 31 pence per litre for that milk in January
22:19
of 2026. Now somewhere there's 70 pence
22:23
gone, bearing in mind that the farmer has had to keep all those
22:27
cows, run a full business and he's got to try and make a
22:32
profit out of the 31 pence. And the the middle men, if you
22:38
like. And the retailers will have that
22:40
milk in their possession for 24 to 48 hours and be able to, to
22:46
treble the price. So we're being, you know,
22:51
farmers are being ransomed really, and have been for quite
22:54
a while. Yeah, I mean, it seems like a,
22:57
a, you know, almost like a controlled demolition of, of
23:00
farming across the nation really.
23:03
And it's, and The thing is that, you know, I remember covering
23:07
on, on, on UK column a while ago, you know, that Dyson bloke,
23:11
James Dyson with his vertical farms and it looked horrible.
23:16
I mean, you can imagine that the, he was growing strawberries
23:19
under, you know, artificial light and all the, you know, and
23:22
nutrients. It was all kind of like a bit
23:26
like a bit like hydroponics or something.
23:28
And you just think that those will be tasteless.
23:31
Those will be absolutely horrible to eat.
23:33
So the quality of food that they intend to for us.
23:37
And I have looked at the Sainsbury's future food report
23:39
and I'm sure you've seen that it just is, it's, it's also off the
23:44
scale, kind of technocratic and, and, and awful.
23:48
You can't imagine that the food will be nutritious at all.
23:52
So do you, do you agree on that one?
23:55
Yes, exactly. I mean both, both plants and
23:59
livestock. Fundamentally, it's a it's a,
24:03
it's a question about the nature of things and how humans
24:07
interact with the natural world. And I think it's very difficult
24:11
sometimes to have conversations like this without coming across
24:13
as some kind of hippie. But fundamentally, the plants
24:17
and animals interact with their environment and the natural
24:20
world in often incredibly minute, nuanced ways, which
24:26
although perhaps modern science understands a vast deal of, of
24:31
things about, you know, animals, hormones and such, there are
24:35
going to be things that are just too subtle and too nuanced to be
24:39
able to replicate inorganically. And, and that should be, that
24:44
should be the end of it, so to speak.
24:46
You know, the, the livestock that we're able to grow here in,
24:49
in, in Devon, grass fed beef, grass fed milk, it, it's to be
24:54
frank, it's the best. You'll not get better because
24:58
it's what the animal is. It's it's preferred source.
25:02
It's what it's for. It's what they do best on.
25:05
They grow the best, they produce the best food, produce the best
25:08
product at the end of it. And that's not something you'll
25:11
be able to replicate inorganically.
25:15
Yeah, and, and sometimes nature works in harmony.
25:18
It all works as you said, it all works in symbiosis with the
25:22
animals on the land and, and and you know, the the whole
25:27
nutrients of the land working with the animals.
25:30
And it's funny, I remember Jeff telling me a story about, you
25:34
know, these sites of scientific interest, you know, and that a
25:38
field was was fucked off by, by the, I think it was the
25:42
Environment Agency said, Oh, no, there's some kind of little
25:46
spider or something that that that needs to be protected in
25:49
this, in this. And you know, the minute you
25:52
took the animals off the land, the spider disappeared anyway,
25:55
because the spider was actually enjoying wing around the
25:57
animals. So it sometimes it doesn't work
26:00
that that this all these draconian measures that they put
26:04
in are sometimes not working in in either the human or nature's
26:09
or the animals benefit. I mean, it's all.
26:12
No. It's all a bit of a nonsense.
26:15
Exactly right. And, and the other thing to
26:17
remember, specifically with the United Kingdom and specifically
26:20
with England, England is for all intents and purposes, A managed
26:24
environment. You know, what we see in the
26:27
English countryside is the product of English agriculture.
26:31
How how that has happened over the past centuries has created
26:36
that environment and should continue to maintain it in the
26:39
same way because it's, it's the best permutation of it.
26:43
How that exists now is the is the best way of managing that
26:48
interaction between agriculture and nature.
26:52
So what we've established is that there's, there seems to be
26:55
a, an attack on farmers by our own government to destroy it, to
26:59
bring in this whole technocratic agenda which they've got, they,
27:02
they think they can run it far more efficiently and smoothly
27:05
and feed all the people well. And we know that that won't be
27:11
the case and that we, and most people don't want this stuff
27:15
that they're offering, to be honest.
27:16
Yes, most people want grass fed beef.
27:19
And we know there's a, there's a big thing about phasing out beef
27:22
and dairy by, by 2049. We know that that's, that's, you
27:26
know, the, the, the government has been talking about that for,
27:29
for a long time. There's this big push towards
27:31
veganism or vegetarianism. You know, we're getting all the
27:35
fake meat because Bill Gates and all the, all the, all the big
27:38
boys have invested in all these horrible fake meat products.
27:44
And so we know that that this, this isn't, this is an agenda
27:47
that they want to push. So this leaves the, the farmers
27:51
with no recourse but to protest and to, to make their voices
27:56
heard. So what challenges have you had
28:00
actually with organising these protests?
28:02
Because I'm sure you've had some.
28:04
Well, basically farmers were unhappy and they did start to
28:08
talk to each other and then sort of a grassroots movement from
28:12
our end started actually down in Devon.
28:15
But but, but pretty quickly other groups sort of formed in
28:20
different parts of the country. But in particular we've noticed
28:25
that first of all, farmers themselves are very independent.
28:31
They're fiercely independent actually, and so they have to
28:34
make snap decisions every day. They have to be a sort of a Jack
28:38
of all trades and master of none quite often a bit of a plumber,
28:40
a bit of a vet, a bit of a mechanic, everything.
28:44
So they they're self reliant and when you try to get them to come
28:50
together, they don't just disagree, they can fiercely
28:53
disagree. But we did have a common goal
28:58
and that gaoled quite a quite a few farmers together.
29:02
And we found out after a few attempts at doing some protests
29:08
and, and making some, some action happen that it wasn't
29:14
going the way that we would like it to.
29:17
And we, we basically found out that we were, we had been
29:20
infiltrated and were being steered either to, to sort of in
29:25
fight or, or basically to shut down.
29:28
Any good ideas, if you like, almost like a sort of a, a
29:33
control to keep a, keep a lid on, on, on us really getting
29:38
together. So it's been very frustrating
29:40
because we've already got enough going on.
29:42
We're fighting for our very lives actually or livelihoods.
29:46
And then to find that there are people out there that will
29:51
sabotage a honest movement from honest farmers was a real shock
29:57
to a lot of people. However, we are regrouping and
30:01
re rallying with a little bit more resolve and a little bit
30:05
more understanding. Or let's say farmers can be also
30:10
quite trusting. But we've, we've learned a lot
30:14
in the last 12 months, let's say.
30:16
So let's see what happens next year.
30:20
It's not going to be quite so quiet, I'd say.
30:25
Good, good. I'm really pleased to hear that.
30:27
Because I mean, I, I must admit when I was, when I was
30:31
interviewing farmers down at the protest and just kidding, I, I
30:39
spoke to quite a few of them and there was one quite elderly
30:42
farmer and, and he was so lovely.
30:44
And he said, you know, it would be better off if I, if I wasn't
30:48
here, if I actually took myself off quietly and died.
30:53
Because you know, my family farm will be, will be lost if, if I
30:58
don't die before April, for instance.
31:00
And have you, have you noticed this?
31:04
I mean, obviously that, that with what's your situation with
31:07
your inheritance? And, and do you know people that
31:10
have actually, I know there's farmers that are, are literally
31:13
actively not having cancer treatments because they would
31:16
rather die. They've been diagnosed with
31:18
cancer. They've got a potential of
31:21
living on, but but they're, they're, they're denying
31:24
themselves the cancer treatments because it would be better for
31:26
their families if they died sooner, which is absolutely
31:29
shocking. And our government should be
31:32
thoroughly ashamed of themselves for pushing farmers in this
31:35
situation. So tell me about anything that
31:38
you have encountered or your your own personal stories for
31:41
instance. Yeah.
31:43
So just to step away, sorry, Jeff, go ahead.
31:46
Yeah. No, you go ahead, Go ahead.
31:49
Yeah, I was to say to to step away from the numbers for a
31:51
minute. That's that's one of them.
31:54
The larger overarching parts of this is that it's a frankly evil
31:59
policy because what they have done by setting a date for this
32:03
Finance Bill with the inheritance tax changes is you
32:05
have given a date to older or elderly or, or I'll farmers
32:11
whose ownership structure. And, and let's bear in mind the
32:15
ownership structure that a lot of people operate under now is
32:19
because that is the most sensible thing to do.
32:22
That has been the most tax efficient and the most sensible
32:25
thing to do for a very long time because inheritance tax relief
32:29
in the form of APR and BPR has been around to enable working
32:33
farms to pass on. So everyone's operated under
32:36
that. And now you've given these
32:38
farmers a date which says by this date you need to to pass
32:43
away. Otherwise your farm's going to
32:46
be broken up in order to for it to be passed over.
32:49
And that's just evil. Yeah.
32:52
And if I could do some statistics to that because and a
32:55
little story as well, a first hand account from somebody that
32:59
we that Ben and I were talking to.
33:01
But suicides, farming suicides, which were reported as suicides.
33:08
Obviously they're they're very private people.
33:11
And so not every, every suicide will be probably published like
33:15
that. But in 2022, there were 44 farm
33:18
suicides. In 23, there were 62 suicides,
33:22
which is up 50% in 2024, almost 100 suicides.
33:30
And I wouldn't be a bit surprised if you don't see
33:34
something like 100 suicides between now and April because
33:38
there were farmers are so up against this idea that they will
33:42
feel like failures if they have to sell, you know, 20% of their
33:47
farm or 30% of their farm which was handed down to them.
33:50
It's a generational thing to pay inheritance tax and they won't
33:54
want to burden their kids with that, that guilt that they have
33:58
to pretty much make a farm that was a viable business into
34:02
something that's no longer viable because of its size.
34:06
And just to add that, you know, exactly, one of those stories
34:10
that we we heard first hand was a woman that basically was
34:16
working for the ambulance service.
34:18
And she was only very recently called out to attend a farmer
34:23
who had hung himself. And he'd done that.
34:26
He had been diagnosed with cancer, but he'd got 18 months
34:29
to live. And so he wasn't going to die
34:33
quick enough. So he he took his own life.
34:36
And it's pretty tragic. Yeah.
34:38
It's. Tragic.
34:40
It's absolutely, absolutely tragic and it shouldn't,
34:43
shouldn't be happening. It's putting putting farmers in
34:46
an impossible situation. This government, they've got
34:49
blood on their hands, that's for sure.
34:51
Absolutely. And in, in way back at the start
34:54
of the damn dog, way back at the start of the Labour government,
34:59
one of the first things they did almost as a precursor is they,
35:03
they pulled the Farming Resilience Fund, which was a pot
35:08
of money that the government used to contribute to several
35:12
farming charities, the farm Community network, which is a,
35:16
which is a farm and charity that you can reach out to if you're
35:19
in, you know, for example, financial difficulty or, or for
35:24
any other issue. And they, they pulled the money
35:27
away from that. And of course, with, with what's
35:29
happening, the FCN's caseload is at an all time high.
35:34
And now they have reduced funding with which to deal with
35:37
it. And I mean, obviously you're
35:40
dairy farmers, aren't you? Or are you cattle?
35:43
Cattle you do? Or do you do both?
35:46
I'm an ex dairy farmer, beef and arable now.
35:49
Oh, right. OK.
35:50
I'm I'm just. I just wondered how's it going
35:53
with things like, you know, that, that we've been sort of,
35:56
we've had avian flu, blue tongue, you know, foot and
35:59
mouth. I mean, what, what's going on
36:01
now? What, what are they throwing at
36:02
you? Anything at the moment?
36:04
Yeah, there's always something on the horizon or or current.
36:08
So TB is ongoing and that's particular bone of contention of
36:13
mine because I think it's AI think it's a very flawed test
36:20
for a start. However, I don't want to get
36:23
bogged down with that. Yeah, there's avian flu about.
36:27
There's always, there's always something.
36:29
And yeah, it's just more pressure for farmers really,
36:35
very often very unnecessary. And we saw this with the foot
36:39
and mouth, how government overreach can be startlingly
36:45
terrifying, to be honest, because introducing A contiguous
36:49
cull, which was any farm that was touching a farm that had an
36:53
animal that's basically showed positive on APCR test, which we
37:00
which we now know that are are not very good at best.
37:05
And then to kill every animal in the surrounding area amounting
37:09
to thousands and thousands needlessly just shows how how
37:16
dangerous they can be. Actually, we have to be on our
37:18
guard as farmers. Yeah.
37:21
And we have, we have of course Ferguson to to blame for that
37:26
one with his computer thing and he did some with COVID.
37:30
So the whole thing, it is a, it was, was manufactured, it was
37:35
manufactured. So it's appalling really,
37:39
because I, I, I don't know if you still, when I first met you
37:43
down in Devon, there was that wonderful vet, Roger Meacock.
37:47
And he did a, a really great talk about PCR testing and how,
37:51
how ridiculous it is 'cause obviously we know that, you
37:55
know, it doesn't work. It's, it was never meant to be a
37:58
diagnostic for, for, for viruses.
38:01
So yeah, but it seems that it's still going on and that you're
38:05
still getting punished. So are you, are you obviously
38:10
you farmers, you're, you're now getting back together after all
38:14
the, the, the problems you've had.
38:16
What, what's, do you have a way forward or am I not allowed to
38:20
know what's going on? Are you just keeping it?
38:23
You're doing your own, your own little.
38:27
Or maybe I. Shouldn't ask you.
38:29
I'll say yes, but I'm not going to tell you.
38:33
No, they're very good. No, I'm, I'm absolutely
38:35
delighted about that. So long as, as long as you're
38:37
still you, you haven't lost your resolve.
38:39
Because I tell you what, I, you know, I, I love the Devon and
38:43
Cornwall farmers because you're so together.
38:47
And I, I mean, I, I was, I was brought up in a farming
38:50
community in Kent. And I find that, you know, that,
38:52
that as far as the UK goes, it's Devon and Cornwall that are
38:57
really leading the, the push for this.
38:59
I'm hoping that you've managed to bring in other farmers from
39:02
other counties, but how is that if you brought managed to bring
39:06
others? Yeah, I mean, I, I would be
39:09
doing, I would be doing other parts of the country a
39:11
disservice there. There are, there are some real
39:14
good guys who've got very good organised local groups in in
39:18
different pockets of the country.
39:20
Kent in particular actually is a very strong following in, in
39:23
Kent and southeast there because I think part partly in that
39:26
area, they almost they have a, a different issue in the the rural
39:31
community. There is a quite small, but also
39:34
with such a proximity to to London and large towns, they're
39:39
going to feel even more isolated from, from the urban
39:42
surroundings. So there'll be almost a a
39:45
stronger community there. I think with, with Devon and
39:48
Cornwall and and Somerset also really it's probably because
39:54
there's just a, a higher prevalence of smaller family
39:58
farms in those three counties. You know, there's a lot more
40:01
traditionally sized holdings, you know, your old yards, your
40:05
old buildings, family setups. The landscape doesn't lend
40:09
itself to large, sprawling, expansive farms basically.
40:15
So the the the IHT changes which.
40:21
Which although I covered at the start with average farm sizes
40:24
that it is something that's going to affect family owned
40:26
holdings more. And so because more of them are
40:29
in the Southwest, it's something that affects more people by
40:32
proxy. I I guess also the Southwest is
40:36
always a little bit mental, so. And Jeff, have you got anything
40:38
else that you want to mention? Because I I'd like to go into
40:42
the bigger picture about what's really going on in the world and
40:45
you know quite a bit about that. Well, yeah, I'd only say that
40:52
there is a bigger picture and it's not just the UK farmers
40:57
that are being affected. We've seen this throughout
40:58
Europe and this seems to be an agenda that's that that's pretty
41:03
clearly been set to take down the West I believe, or certainly
41:08
to take out all, all the independent businesses.
41:11
But what a great way of doing it by controlling the food, because
41:16
once you control the food, you control the people.
41:18
So they're clearly coming for the Achilles heel or, or at
41:21
least if they can take us out, they can, they can certainly get
41:24
everyone else in line. And this isn't something new.
41:27
I mean, basically, so it's, it's something that's repeated itself
41:31
through history. So we know that, for instance, I
41:35
think it was, well, there was an attack on the farmers.
41:39
There was a Bolshevik revolution which was in in Russia in 1917
41:44
to 22 and that led to famine that killed millions.
41:48
The Chinese famine whether there was Holodomor also in in Russia.
41:53
So they had two goes at it. And then the the Chinese famine
41:58
58 to 61. Millions of people starved to
42:00
death in that and then Holodomor and Cambodia between 75 and 79.
42:08
Of course, the common elements with all of those is it was
42:12
actually communist LED, socialist LED and collectivism
42:19
of farms taking farmers off the lands, controlling how they
42:24
farmed. And this led to devastating,
42:27
devastating results. And we shouldn't be complacent
42:30
in thinking that it can't happen again.
42:33
It's, it's not we're, we're an island.
42:35
We're already, you know, isolated.
42:37
And if we're not careful about how we manage things, this could
42:40
happen again. And I won't go on about the
42:43
Fabian Society too much, which they, they do deserve a mention
42:47
because the Fabian Society, obviously a lot of people have
42:51
woken up to incidentally, their emblem was a wolf in sheep's
42:56
clothing. They've, they had to take that
42:58
down and now it's just a tortoise.
42:59
But they. Tortoise is when we strike, we
43:04
strike hard because the tortoise is slow, you see, their whole
43:07
thing is gradual. So yeah.
43:11
Yeah, their little statement I think is for the work that is
43:14
best administered the more silent it is, right.
43:19
So in, in its own way, it's let's, let's do this in a very
43:24
stealthy manner. And we know that's, that's also
43:27
a socialist, A playbook, you know, a sort of a slow, a slow
43:31
boiling of the frog. So we're with, we're having more
43:35
and more red tape. We're having more and more, you
43:38
know, they're taking the subsidies away everything by
43:41
increments. And now HT and you know, we're,
43:45
we're, we're almost there with, you know, there'll be a
43:48
prediction is that there'll be 40% less farms in five years
43:51
time. Yeah.
43:53
I mean, it's absolutely, yeah, absolutely.
43:56
So I mean, knowing, knowing what you know, knowing what we know.
44:01
Do you think, I mean, is, is there any, any hope at all of
44:05
turning us around? I mean, how do we, I mean, is it
44:08
about raising public awareness? Is it about political pressure
44:11
on the government? Is it about, look, we know what
44:14
you're doing and, and you know, and the people don't want this.
44:18
Do we need to do more localised stuff?
44:21
You know, do we need to sort of, you know, get communities
44:26
together to, to, to create food production themselves, smaller
44:30
farms, all this kind of thing to try and resist what the hell
44:33
they want, because what they want is for you to go.
44:36
So what can we do and how can we help you?
44:42
Yeah, fundamentally. And that that's what's so
44:44
interesting at the moment is there are so many aspects just
44:48
sticking with the UK for a second, but there are so many
44:51
aspects of society that have pretty major grievances with
44:57
with the current government. I mean, obviously it's, it's not
45:00
been enacted purely in the last 12 months.
45:02
It's, it's been built up. But there are so many people
45:06
groups as of right now that all have issues.
45:08
And the difficult part is overcoming the last 30-40 years
45:14
of hyper individualization that has pushed everyone apart
45:19
basically. So it's very difficult to build
45:22
bridges with groups that you don't necessarily have common
45:26
ground with, you know, especially with sticking with
45:29
agriculture. Jeff's right.
45:32
We've been, we've been, I don't want to say pushed out that's
45:35
the wrong word, but we've been pushed into this situation where
45:40
you are on your farm all the time, just working, just trying
45:45
to keep it all moving. You just don't have time to go
45:50
to other things and, and meet other people, meet non farming
45:54
people and have, have conversations and, and create
45:58
community links. And so the, the, the tricky part
46:01
now is overcoming is overcoming that and, and building bridges
46:06
with, you know, groups who I can't think of a brilliant
46:11
example, but you know, there's understandably and there should
46:14
be a massive push back against digital ID.
46:16
So, you know, a, a, a group that wants to push against that, you
46:21
know, trying to forge links with that is it would be the way
46:25
forward in terms of your local communities combating a
46:30
combating a larger or sorry, a wider more globalist agenda.
46:35
Yes, the, the answer is local because at the end of the day,
46:39
the bit you can control is your immediate local environment, who
46:43
you interact with, how you help them and how they help you.
46:49
Yeah. How you feed yourself on a day
46:51
to day basis and house yourself on a day to day basis and
46:54
looking after your neighbours, your, your immediate community
46:59
is, is how you how we will end up combating this because at the
47:04
moment there is no one group or collection of groups that does
47:08
possess the immediate pushback power.
47:11
So to get there we need to have a good understanding of our
47:14
local communities and our inter community networks.
47:19
Absolutely, yes, yes. And I mean, are you, are you
47:24
looking also at, at pressing the government to change the, the
47:28
legislation that they have? I mean, is there any, any part
47:31
of your, your action, taking any action towards, you know, sort
47:36
of legally looking at trust or whatever?
47:38
I don't, I don't know what what any way you can get over the the
47:43
nation that's being thrown at. You yeah, so so without going
47:48
into specifics kind of without going into specifics of of my
47:52
situation on an open channel, yeah, I've looked into the trust
47:56
thing because the, you know, put everything in a trust is
47:59
something that often comes up in in the online discourse
48:01
surrounding this basically that's.
48:06
Why I mentioned sorry? It's, it's, it's not, it's not a
48:12
solution for us. It may be a solution for some.
48:15
Fundamentally, there's a large tax bill to pay when you create
48:19
a trust and put assets into it. There's then every 10 years
48:25
there's a percentage tax bill due on it.
48:29
If you close the trust, there's then another tax bill due on it.
48:34
For the size of holding that we are here and the income that we
48:39
currently generate it, it's not an option basically.
48:42
So without knowing everyone's situation, I would suggest it's
48:47
not an option for a lot of people to be frank.
48:52
Yeah, beyond beyond that, the the seven year transition rule,
48:57
which is often banded around that at the moment currently is,
49:00
is still an option whereby you know, the, the asset holder,
49:05
landowner gifts, gifts the land over after seven years, there's
49:12
there's no tax due on that transfer.
49:15
The relief is tapered over that time period with the first two
49:20
years being 100% due I believe and it steps down to 70, then
49:25
30, then zero. But I'm not 100% sure on the
49:28
time steps. But obviously at at this point
49:32
with only, you know, four months to go, it's kind of a moot point
49:38
being a being a seven year transition.
49:43
Absolutely. So are you sort of, would it be
49:46
a good idea to collaborate with other other kind of affected
49:51
groups like fishermen and rural communities, small businesses to
49:55
do with farming and and land owners?
50:00
Do you reach out to them to sort of try and get some cohesion
50:03
with with what's happening? Yes, it's quite a challenge.
50:08
We've been, we have tried, it's hard to to draw everyone
50:14
together. But I would say that it's
50:18
desperate times right now and we do need to make the, the general
50:23
public aware that we need to be not looking at a climate
50:27
emergency. We need to actually be looking,
50:29
looking at a food emergency. And I think we talked about this
50:32
before Sandy, maybe even a couple of years ago, where we
50:35
need to declare a food emergency because the actual statistics
50:39
are that we are importing 53% of our food.
50:42
The government won't tell you that.
50:44
And, and As for fish, it's 92%. So we're only actually 8% self
50:50
sufficient and we're and we're surrounded by sea and it's
50:53
absolutely crazy. Excuse me?
50:56
Isn't it? Yeah, and I mean, if we can't
51:00
rally the country behind, you know, behind being self
51:05
sufficient in food, I don't know, there's going to be no
51:08
hope for us really because everyone has to eat every day.
51:13
Well, absolutely. This is partly why I've asked
51:16
you on because I really think that we, we could actually start
51:20
a big campaign, you know, against the fact that food
51:24
security, well, is it is in danger.
51:27
Our government aren't, aren't acknowledging this.
51:29
And and actually food security, I think is one of the 13 what do
51:35
they call protected food infrastructures of, of
51:38
government. Government is supposed to
51:40
protect food security and there's thirteen of those
51:42
infrastructures and they're not doing it.
51:44
And I've, I've raised this, I raised it in Parliament a few,
51:48
you know, two years ago where we had a, a, a debate in Parliament
51:52
over food security. And I, I, I went there and put
51:56
my, my views forward. Nothing ever happened.
51:59
You know, and I know that Rachel at cultures to council watchers
52:04
dealt with food security issues within her council to saying we
52:07
don't need to worry about net zero, Net 0 is not a problem.
52:10
Food is. And we've done this and I've
52:12
done it with my council, but there's just no, no reaction at
52:16
all because it's, it's, it seems to be a systemic sort of
52:20
cognitive dissonance around it. So I think really we we've got
52:25
to make a lot of noise about this.
52:27
And this is partly why I thought it was that you came on, because
52:31
everyone you see, because a lot of the time at these rallies,
52:36
you don't get the real farmers speaking and we need to hear
52:39
from you. You, you are the real people.
52:42
And so I'm, yeah, I'm very. That's something, if there is,
52:46
if there is a takeaway message for the, for the general public,
52:50
like a very brief one, that's something that people should
52:54
understand is that if this inheritance tax comes in and
52:59
stays in food price will go up significantly.
53:03
Because if it doesn't, you're going to lose all your farms
53:08
because the small guys are just not going to be able to pay for
53:11
it. They don't have the income
53:13
available to them to cover the tax bill and they don't have the
53:17
income available to service a a loan should they borrow to pay
53:22
that tax bill either. So it's a non starter.
53:25
It it, it's, it's an incredibly short sighted decision.
53:32
But to just to call back to your to your wider agenda very
53:35
briefly. You know, Jeff and I know of at
53:39
least one guy. I mean, I have friends, you
53:42
know, my age and a bit younger. It's not just our issue.
53:47
You know, these guys, they think, OK, well, I'll go and
53:49
look at moving to another country.
53:51
They go to New Zealand, they go from New Zealand at the moment.
53:53
They go to Australia, they go to Canada.
53:56
It's the same problem. The same problems are present in
54:00
all of those Anglosphere countries at around about the
54:03
same stage of the process. And it's it's food prices
54:07
climbing. The food price at the farm gate
54:10
is down. There's these mysterious housing
54:13
crises everywhere, yet house prices are through the roof.
54:17
It's the same bracket of problems all over the
54:20
Anglesphere, all at the same time.
54:22
Absolutely. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a
54:25
destruction of the West and Western West.
54:30
So, you know, I've seen this in Canada in, in New Zealand.
54:34
I mean, New Zealand with managed retreat is absolutely
54:38
outrageous. I mean, there's farms on the
54:40
coast and they're saying it's sea level rise.
54:42
There is no sea level rise. You know, this is just a way of
54:45
literally land grabbing. And, and we're seeing a land
54:48
grabbing all over the world. And, and, and in England too.
54:52
I mean, I've seen it on the North Somerset coast with, you
54:55
know, the, the salt marshes. They're, they're saying, well,
54:58
they're going to flood. They're deliberately flooding
55:01
them, you know, because they, they, they want, you know, the,
55:04
the land has to be, has to be destroyed.
55:07
Yeah. So there's harbours, there's
55:09
harbours in the southwest of England on, on the, you know, on
55:11
the Devil and Cornwall coast. There's harbours that have been
55:14
there for hundreds of years. And the bottom step is still the
55:17
bottom step. I mean, if that's not an
55:19
argument against sea level rise, I don't really know what is.
55:24
Absolutely. The whole thing is a nonsense
55:26
and it it's just a way of, of destroying the food supply and
55:30
destroying farms and really destroying us, you know, as, as
55:35
people. And that is yet another
55:38
conversation that is going on many places is that you know
55:43
what, what happens to, to us as, as you know, as as nation states
55:48
of Europe, we're being destroyed.
55:50
Yeah. Well, according to some of the
55:53
elites, we're useless eaters anyway.
55:56
Well, yeah, we can reveal that they're pretty useless.
56:01
And yeah, they think they're God.
56:03
They think they're, they think they're, you know, the supreme
56:05
beings and that they should, yeah, we should be got rid of.
56:08
But actually, you know, we're all, we're all, we're all here
56:13
under, under 1 sky and we have to fight, fight for our, for our
56:17
livelihoods. Really.
56:19
I don't know. Is there anything else you want
56:21
to say? Because we're nearly done.
56:22
Is there any anything else you'd like to say to round up really,
56:27
Jeff or maybe Ben? Ben and then Jeff, yes.
56:32
Yeah, just just super briefly. I did touch on it once before
56:37
when we talked before Sandy, something that I'm always quite
56:40
interested in. They are yet again trying to
56:43
change the firearms laws in this country, which I think is
56:47
something that any nation should should be aware of.
56:51
They're basically trying to make it much more difficult for
56:55
existing shotgun holders to carry on as they are it, it will
57:02
do nothing to prevent the small amount of gun crime that we have
57:06
in this country. And if if you look at the
57:09
history of firearms legislation in this country, it's never
57:13
provably done that. There are massage statistics to
57:17
say that it does, but it hasn't. And they're they are trying once
57:22
again to effectively target the rural, the rural side of the
57:27
country, which fundamentally are people that can eat and protect
57:31
themselves. And it's just another avenue of
57:34
attack on that. Absolutely.
57:37
And it's been forever thus, I mean, since Dunblane or even
57:40
before, I think, yeah, they've been, they've been trying to
57:43
disarm farmers. And and as you, as you say, you
57:46
know, the, the the statistics don't stack up.
57:49
Farmers aren't, aren't crazy People go around shooting people
57:53
they for their work. And and so they should.
57:57
And yeah, I did. I did a thing actually.
57:59
You, you, you've just reminded me when we spoke in Devon once,
58:03
you told me all about this. And I did do a thing, a little
58:06
little piece on the column about it.
58:08
Oh, probably, probably about a year ago.
58:12
And yeah, it's, it is a problem. It is a problem.
58:15
And I think that farmers should be honoured with at least being
58:18
able to protect their land and their and their animals and
58:22
everything else because statistically they are not crazy
58:25
people that shoot people. Yeah.
58:29
And statistically, gun crimes are usually caused by people
58:33
that don't, they don't want registered guns, so they'll find
58:37
them from somewhere. So they're not, they're not
58:40
taking them off the farmer and using them.
58:43
A registered gun owner keeps it in his cabinet and is very and
58:47
is very careful about how he handles this, his guns or
58:52
rifles, shotguns or rifles. So yeah, that that that would
58:55
never change. And we've seen it in other
58:56
countries. And I think America's the lowest
58:59
1 standing, isn't it in in any big way that still can sort of,
59:05
yeah, can defend themselves. Yeah, absolutely.
59:09
And also they pitched, they pitched certain factions like
59:12
the hunters, they pitch against other farmers, didn't they?
59:15
They tried to divide. Them.
59:17
Yeah, exactly that. I mean, if if you were ever
59:20
curious as to how how a state gets what it get, gets what it
59:26
wants by kind of subverting a certain segment of of the
59:30
population, that's exactly what happened in the firearms
59:32
community. They structured the different
59:36
bans and law changes to only affect certain parts of the
59:40
community. So yeah, you're quite right.
59:43
The example I once gave you is when they, when they came to ban
59:46
handguns, the guys who shot target rifles said, well, you
59:50
know, I'm not going to stand up and push back because I'm not
59:54
affected as a target shooter and I don't want to cause trouble
59:58
because then I might lose my bit.
1:00:00
And then a couple of years later when they came for the self
1:00:02
loading rifles, the guys who shot shotguns said, well, I'm
1:00:06
not going to stand up because it doesn't affect me and I don't
1:00:09
want to cause trouble and draw attention to me.
1:00:11
And now 20 years later, which although sounds like a long
1:00:15
term, a long time in the scheme of legislative changes in a
1:00:19
country, it's not, you know, now we've got this thing where
1:00:22
shotguns are now under question and there are no other segments
1:00:25
left who are willing to stand up and say, no, although this
1:00:30
doesn't affect me, it's wrong to change it because the, you know,
1:00:34
the target, the self loading rifle target community is gone.
1:00:37
The handgun community is gone. You know, at the moment they're
1:00:40
trying to, they're trying to enact a ban on lead projectiles
1:00:44
under some kind of incredibly wafer thin green agenda based on
1:00:49
a single study on nesting birds on the South Coast.
1:00:52
It's a ludicrous proposition, and quite how it managed to
1:00:56
sneak its way into law, I do not know.
1:00:59
Yeah, Well, thank you for that. Any last words, Geoff I?
1:01:06
Don't think so. I'd like to just say thank you
1:01:08
to you, Sandy. Keep up the good work.
1:01:11
I think I've I've learned a lot as a result of listening to, to
1:01:15
your deep dives on different things and it's made me do my
1:01:18
own research. We need a voice like yours and
1:01:22
any ideas you've got for us to sort of bring us together,
1:01:26
please do share it with us. We, we are, we're getting to
1:01:30
the, the point where we're certainly going to be very soon
1:01:34
desperate and desperate. May desperate men will will take
1:01:38
desperate measures. Well, you know, I'm, I'm
1:01:41
absolutely well, thank you for those words.
1:01:43
And I tell you what, I am 100% behind you and I will do
1:01:47
anything in my power to, to, to really push this because this
1:01:51
is, this is, this is food. This is what keeps us alive and,
1:01:56
and, and this is how they, this is how they operate.
1:01:58
So I'm absolutely committed and, and this isn't the end.
1:02:03
We will continue, we'll just continue to this fight and we
1:02:06
will have meetings in clandestine pubs in Devon and
1:02:10
and we will sort it all out, I'm sure.
1:02:12
OK. Well, thank you so much too.
1:02:14
It's been an absolute joy to speak to you, although a very,
1:02:18
very, very, you know, dark subject, to be honest.
1:02:21
But I'm absolutely convinced that we can fight this more and
1:02:26
we can put pressure on the government.
1:02:27
And yeah, I, I, I just can't thank you enough for talking
1:02:31
about all of this today. Thank you so much.
1:02:33
Ben and Jeff been wonderful to. Thank you, Sandy.
1:02:37
It's much appreciated.