Politics London Richard tice

Richard Tice turned up at the farmers’ tractor protest, and his old Just Stop Oil posts rolled in to haunt him

Oonagh Keating. Updated December 12th, 2024

You can’t have failed to notice the enormous furore caused by the Government’s decision to apply inheritance tax to farms valued at £1 million or more, from April 2026.

With allowances for primary residences passed to children or grandchildren, a farm-owning couple would have to have a property worth more than £3 million before their heirs would be expected to pay the tax – set at 20 per cent of anything over the £3 million, which is half of the usual rate.

Enter stage left – or should that be out of left field? – wealthy landowners such as Jeremy Clarkson and James Dyson, whose properties are worth considerably more than the threshold.

On Wednesday, thousands of farmers, whipped into a frenzy and panic by characters on the political right, drove tractors into Westminster in protest at the tax.

The sheer volume of the protest, as well as the nature of it, caused severe problems for Londoners – most of whom would love to have even the chance of a £3 million property to pass on.

There was little sympathy on social media.

Clarkson’s buddy saw a silver lining.

So did John O’Farrell.

Some of the usual suspects were there.

Reform UK MP, Richard Tice, seemed very pleased with the turnout – and the disruption.

Incredible support, hundreds of tractors in Whitehall Scrap the family farm tax. Images - a selfie showing the protest in the background. Pluse a shot of a lot of tractors.

There was one huge fly in the ointment …this tweet.

Tice tweet from 2023. Just seen jerks from Just Stop Oil stopping traffic on Vauxhall Bridge. Police there being utterly hopeless whilst traffic fuming I told them to arrest them for breach of 1980 Highways Act but “waiting for orders”

Oh! And this one.

GREAT NEWS<br />Just Stop Oil protesters jailed after M25 blocked<br />Let’s hope they serve full 4 and 5 year jail terms

In fact, Tice made complaining about Just Stop Oil protests almost his whole personality for a while – leaving space for some casual demonising of immigrants, of course.

His hypocrisy did not go unnoticed.

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Just Stop Oil, whose activists were sentenced to four and five years for planning and executing protests that partially blocked the M25 had this tongue-in-cheek comment.

Well played.

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Richard Tice was asked to put detail – any detail! – on Reform UK’s bonfire of the quangos and he melted quicker than a snowflake

Image Screengrab from Josiah Mortimer