Shropshire farmer protest takes to the streets of Shrewsbury

Shropshire Star

Farmers are feeling under attack at the moment and not heard so today they did laps of Shrewsbury Town Centre and pulled up for a time in The Square, Shrewsbury hoping to draw some attention to there cause.

Transcript

00:00So we're here in Shrewsbury, in the square, and introduce yourself, sir.

00:04Hello, my name's Alan Hughes, I'm a member of Farmers to Action.

00:08We're here today to say no to Labour.

00:11We are not happy with their policy and the way things are going,

00:15and we're going to vote for the Shropshire elections for anyone bar them.

00:18And I consider you to consider carefully who you vote for as well.

00:22So you're here to have your voice heard.

00:24You were trying to let people know via a TikTok video, weren't you, that you were coming in?

00:28And you've been banned from TikTok.

00:31Yeah, we're on TikTok Live, saying we're going to be in Shrewsbury Square today

00:35to encourage people to consider their vote and to consider their food security before supporting Labour.

00:41And within 30 seconds, we've been banned for apparently violent material political nature,

00:47which just shows how much we're being silenced by the government and the media to not having our own voice.

00:54Freedom of speech is no longer free in the United Kingdom.

00:58And that is a fact.

01:00It's kind of worrying, isn't it?

01:01You know, 30 seconds of a vid, just saying we're in town, come and have a chat to us,

01:05hear what we've got to say, and then bump your shutdown, you know what I mean?

01:09Bump your band.

01:10It's literally anything that you're not toeing the line, the government is shutting you down on it.

01:14So what's the problem with Labour?

01:16What are they doing you don't like?

01:18Well, they're pushing up the prices of taxes to produce food.

01:22They're allowing in imports from abroad, from South America, from Africa, using chemicals banned for use in this country

01:29because they cause cancer and health issues.

01:31So how can they be allowing practices which are illegal for farmers to produce food to be imported and sold through the supermarkets?

01:39Plus, we're having taxes put on us to make it harder to produce food by taxing fertilizer, fuel,

01:46driving up business costs so we can't produce food at an affordable price.

01:50And they're allowing the supermarkets, the milk companies, to dictate price to us

01:55and then selling the product for five times more than what they're purchasing of us at the expense of the public.

02:02So food is getting too dear for the public to buy and it's too cheap of a price we're being paid to even produce it.

02:10We're having to run second or third businesses to survive as farmers and produce food for nothing.

02:16All this machinery here costs hundreds of thousands of pounds

02:19and we're having to pay for it on least higher purchases to produce food at break-even to a loss.

02:26It's morally wrong and things have got to change.

02:29So when we see food in the supermarket, quite often that price is being sold at.

02:33A farmer's only getting a fifth of that, is it?

02:35A fifth of the price.

02:36If you're paying £1.50 for a litre of milk, the farmer is lucky to see £0.35 of it

02:42for all of the work involved, all of the risk.

02:45The majority of farmers are lucky to make £1.50 profit

02:49where the supermarkets make £0.30 minimum profit per litre of milk.

02:55It's nothing for them to drop the price to you by £0.20

02:58and still make 10 times the profit off that bottle than the farmers are receiving.

03:03It's an absolute joke and a disgrace.

03:05So do you just feel that you're just not being heard?

03:09Nobody wants to engage?

03:10They're just kind of ignoring your concerns?

03:13Is that how it feels as a farmer?

03:15They've brought in compulsory purchase laws that we are not allowed to fight.

03:18We're told the price and you have to take it.

03:21Take it or leave it.

03:22You have no comeback.

03:23And they're forcing us out of business.

03:25So large corporations can take our ground, put it into carbon secrecy, put it into solar farms

03:30so that food becomes even more expensive and by controlling the food price of the public

03:36they control the nation.

03:38A hungry nation is not worried about rebelling against the government or about policies.

03:42They're only worried about where their next meal comes from.

03:45It is becoming more than a police state.

03:48It's becoming a prison state.

03:50And we need to stand up for ourselves while we still have a way to do it.

03:54We're never jailing the public for doing social media videos

03:58and banning people from doing live videos which are not talking in the way they want you to.

04:03Something is seriously wrong.

04:06And this country is fast becoming a mirror of Russia.

04:09They're looking at communist situations and communist laws in a police state

04:13where they are silencing us as a nation and individuals.

04:17There is no longer free speech in this nation.

04:20And I fall long, I'll be in an orange jumpsuit shipped abroad for saying it.

04:25So the game is there.

04:27You've pulled up here in the square.

04:29The lads in the tractor have done a few lapses of the town as well, haven't they?

04:31With the banners and tooting the horn.

04:33Yeah, yeah.

04:34Well, we wish you all the best, sir.

04:36And, you know, keep farming to the best of your ability.

04:39It's a valuable resource for the country and such a big employer here in Shropshire.

04:43All the best, sir.

04:44Thank you for everyone's support.

04:45We are forming as an organisation.

04:48Follow farmers to action as we will be starting membership-leading campaigns

04:52and more political and protest actions followed by petitions and other things

04:59to support our great nation and the people in it.

05:02To keep Britain great and improve things for everybody, not just the farmers.

05:06That's why the banners are,

05:08abolish inheritance tax for all and fair food prices for everyone.

05:12None of us should be paying a fortune for food

05:15for the benefit of large supermarkets and business

05:17at the expense of everybody else in our country.

05:20So, thank you for your support and coming today.

05:31So, we're here with Henry.

05:33And how old are you, Henry?

05:34I'm 18 years old.

05:36And farming's in the blood, isn't it?

05:38How many generations has your family been going with?

05:40We're a 14th generation farm from Westbrook in Shropshire.

05:45Yeah.

05:45And, you know, you're 18.

05:47With the state of the industry and all that you see in it,

05:49have you ever thought twice about going into it?

05:52Well, before Labour brought in this inheritance tax, the death tax,

05:57I always assumed that I'd be going into farming,

06:01continuing on the family legacy.

06:03But with this land grab, the death tax,

06:09I just won't be able to unless there is something done about it.

06:12That's why we're out here today engaging with the general public

06:16and trying to get our message out to them

06:18to show them our side of the story.

06:21Introduce yourselves, lads.

06:22We've got two strapping farmers.

06:23Who have we got?

06:24James Thompson from South Shropshire.

06:26And farmer.

06:28My name's Ed Beckett.

06:29I'm an arable farmer from Shropshire.

06:31I'm a sister shipworter.

06:32We've had a chat to Alan,

06:33who's kind of talked us through some of the issues with Labour.

06:36How are you feeling as farmers in this current day and age

06:40and political situation?

06:42Pretty beaten up.

06:43Yeah, we're under attack, aren't we?

06:45We're under attack.

06:45That's what it feels like, yeah?

06:46Despite the glorious weather we've got at the moment,

06:49there's quite a bit of doom and gloom in the agricultural sector at the moment

06:53with rising costs and increasing uncertainty.

06:57IHT gone, SFI gone.

07:01This is all the funding kind of, yeah, yeah.

07:04Carbon tax, which is imminent.

07:05Carbon tax, fertiliser prices due to increase to 37.

07:10Yeah.

07:11It goes on.

07:12So do you feel, is it a generational thing for you?

07:17Were you family farmers before and so on?

07:19My father was a farmer.

07:20My son wants to farm.

07:22Yeah.

07:22But you do wonder.

07:26We've got to sell 20% of it to pay for the inheritance of the tax.

07:31Yeah.

07:32There won't be a lot left.

07:33Yeah.

07:34And yourself, are you a family farmers?

07:36I'm a third generation farmer.

07:37My grandfather was a new entrance as part of the war effort in the very late 1930s.

07:45And, you know, he's been able to handle the fruits of his labour and his career over two generations.

07:55Yeah.

07:55The only reason that I'm able to farm now is because of the endeavours of my previous generations.

08:02And, you know, it probably won't mean the end of our farm in one generation, but it's incrementally going to, you know, 220%.

08:16Yeah.

08:16It's going to be, you know, unviable, effectively.

08:18Yeah.

08:19Yeah.

08:19You know.

08:20So do you feel, you've got issues, you know, that you want resolved.

08:24Do you feel that as a farming community, those issues are being listened to?

08:28They're being taken seriously or not at all?

08:31I don't have any government.

08:32Yeah.

08:32No.

08:33Yeah.

08:33No.

08:34Don't, yeah, just feel ignored.

08:36All the farming organisations went to them, went to the Treasury with a plan that would actually raise more money.

08:42Yeah.

08:42And they wouldn't entertain us at all.

08:44Can you get your head around that?

08:46Can you, can you see from their point of view, can you understand why they wouldn't entertain that?

08:52I mean, it sounds like a no-brainer, doesn't it, to us here on the ground.

08:55Have you been able to, has you just left you scratching your head and puzzled?

08:58I just can't, it's beggars to believe.

08:59I think there's a lack of understanding.

09:01I mean, it's not held by the fact that our farmer representation probably isn't as good as it should be.

09:07Yeah.

09:07And what we're seeing now is probably the culmination of 30 or 40 years of under-promotion of farming's importance in the country.

09:17Yeah.

09:17It's not, you know, it's not something that's come on suddenly.

09:21It's these, the problems that we're facing are the ones that really have built up over the last few decades.

09:25And the public probably don't understand it either.

09:27Yeah.

09:27Farming.

09:28Yeah.

09:28Disconnect, isn't it?

09:29In terms of the, what it takes to get, make the food, the actual money you end up with in your pocket at the end of it.

09:35It's probably being refused for us.

09:36Yeah.

09:37It's a hundred acre block.

09:38Difficult, difficult.

09:39Yeah, I mean, we don't know, do we?

09:41But it just feels like now that the representation that we need is lacking.

09:47Yeah.

09:48Yeah.

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