Editor’s View: What will it take to win IHT reform?
© NurPhoto SRL/Alamy Stock Photo With just a few days to go until farmers throng Westminster seeking a Labour U-turn on inheritance tax (IHT), the question must be… will they succeed?
The task for the marchers outside parliament, and the NFU members lobbying inside it, is to persuade chancellor Rachel Reeves that it will be more damaging for her to stick to her guns than to change direction.
Persuading backbenchers to exert pressure on her from within the party is an extremely potent tool.
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Winning the argument on the streets and in the court of public opinion will exert a different kind of pressure.
When successful, it persuades party leaders that unless they move on this issue, they lose the right to be heard by the public on the issues that Labour does want to talk about.
Farmers at AgriScot this week were told by Scottish first minister John Swinney that the changes would cause the sector “intolerable stress and uncertainty”, adding the Scottish National Party’s voice to those calling for a rethink.
That is the sort of pressure a politician is best at withstanding – the slings and arrows from their own class – but even they will still resent giving all their opponents something to agree on.
Yet there doesn’t seem to be much optimism that the chancellor will change tack.
Some tell me, gloomily, that because she refused to budge on winter fuel payments, she has not got the political wiggle room to shift on this.
Others say that structuring the IHT change in this way was not a clumsy mistake, but something Labour truly believe in – they really do see farmers as a wealthy and cosseted group that can afford to be squeezed for more tax.
The remarks by former Labour special adviser John McTernan this week only fanned those flames when he said that Labour should do to small farmers what Margaret Thatcher did to coal miners.
I remain optimistic that, at the very least, a compromise will be offered – but don’t despair if success isn’t immediate.
The key is to make it clear this is just the beginning. It took two months before George Osborne reversed his pasty tax proposal in the 2012 omnishambles Budget.
Failure to change tack will be a tacit acknowledgement that Labour has already written off a big chunk its own MPs in marginal rural seats.
That’s a mighty risky strategy, even with a big majority – who knows where else it might lose support in the next five years?
Yet the case of the miserable Mr McTernan is a lesson that all demonstrators and lobbyists must take to heart before Tuesday.
The speed at which the inflammatory clip went round the internet serves to illustrate just how rapidly the damage one loose-lipped person can do to a cause – even one being advanced by their own team.
The organisers of the march have it exactly right in making repeated calls for all participants to uphold the farming industry’s reputation and make this a positive event.
I am sure they will be heard and it will be a tremendous spectacle. See you there.