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A signed-up Labour Party member farmer has revoked his membership after Steve Reed claimed farmers were “in it for the money” in the Commons.
Reed told MPs: “The Shadow Secretary of State, as well as the former Prime Minister, keep telling farmers they’re not in it for the money. We know that they are.”
“They’re businesses that need to make a profit, and our new deal for farmers, including increasing supply chain fairness, is intended to make farms profitable and successful for the future, in a way that they were not under the previous Government.”
Oli Fletcher, a seventh-generation young farmer from a small family farm in Leicestershire, said he, his father and his grandfather have been “lifelong Labour supporters as they are working class”.
Reed told MPs: “The Shadow Secretary of State, as well as the former Prime Minister, keep telling farmers they’re not in it for the money. We know that they are”
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Though the party has already taken Fletcher’s membership fee, he told GB News he had now cancelled the direct debit.
When he heard what Reed had said, Fletcher immediately pointed to the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs’s (Defra’s) own data.
The department’s figures show that 30 per cent of farms made no money or lost money in the last financial year, while the return on capital employed averages out at 0.5 per cent.
Reed is “right to say we need to make some semblance of a living”, Fletcher said: “But the choices of his Government are going to make that impossible for a lot of people.”
LABOUR TAKES ON BRITISH FARMERS – READ MORE:
Oli Fletcher told GB News he had now cancelled the direct debit to Labour
GB NEWS
Farmers took to London last week in protest
PA
“He is demonstrating, yet again, that he has no understanding of rural people, rural culture, or the farming sector.
“It is a lifestyle and a labour of love, which is why 30 per cent of businesses continue to operate at a loss.”
He also voiced his support for Victoria Atkins, Reed’s shadow counterpart, who said a farmer had taken his own life to save his family the burden of Labour’s proposed inheritance tax.
Reed told Atkins it was “irresponsible in the extreme to seek to weaponise personal tragedy” – and that “where there is mental ill health, there needs to be support for that”.
Atkins herself later told GB News: “This demonstrates yet again that City Steve simply doesn’t get it.
Atkins said farmers’ lifestyles were ‘a long way from City Steve’s blinkered gaze’
PA
“Many farmers operate on the tightest of margins, in tough conditions all year round. They do it because they care about our countryside, they want to look after the land and provide the food we all need.
“That lifestyle is a long way from City Steve’s blinkered gaze. Labour is not to be trusted with our countryside.”
Fletcher said the same – saying Reed was “showing he doesn’t understand how farmers live”.
“Old boys in particular are very matter-of-fact about death,” he told GB News. “It is not a mental health issue, but a perfectly rational course of action to allow the farm to continue.
“As a retired farmer, your life has been dedicated to ensuring your children can continue, and many people now find their sense of duty to the land means they have to make sure they are not still alive in April 2026.
Liz Webster has called on Steve Reed to resign
GB NEWS
“This is entirely the Government’s fault and Steve Reed should take accountability for the bereavements his policies are causing.”
Meanwhile, Liz Webster, founder of Save British Farming, told GB News: “Steve Reed continues to show that he is totally unsuitable and unfit to be Defra Secretary and he should resign.
“The world faces increasing crises, especially for food thanks to climate events and war. This Government has to face the fact it got its numbers wrong and U-turn on their poisonous Budget for farming and SMEs, and apologise for the distress and damage they have caused.”
A government spokesperson said: “Our commitment to farmers remains steadfast – we have committed £5 billion to the farming budget over two years, including more money than ever for sustainable food production, and we are developing a 25-year farming roadmap, focusing on how to make the sector more profitable in the decades to come.
“Our reform to Agricultural and Business Property Relief will impact around 500 estates a year.
“For these estates, inheritance tax will be at half the rate paid by others, with 10 years to pay the liability back interest free. This is a fair and balanced approach which fixes the public services we all rely on.”
Anyone who is in emotional distress, struggling to cope or at risk of suicide can call the Samaritans anonymously for free from a UK phone on 116 123 or go to samaritans.org.
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