How Reform Is Winning Over Britain’s Farmers

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has established itself as the unofficial opposition to Labour, with some polls showing it would win a majority if a general election was held this year. But while the party is making inroads across Britain, nowhere is this as stark as in the breadbasket of England – Lincolnshire in the East Midlands. 

The second largest county in the UK, Lincolnshire boasts a varied landscape, with industrial northern towns like Scunthorpe, historic Lincoln’s Roman roads and Norman castle, seaside resorts, marshy fenlands and vast patchworks of fields. It’s also an agricultural powerhouse. Home to nearly 3,500 farm holdings, Lincolnshire produces 25% of Britain’s vegetables, 19% of sugar beets, 18% of duck and 11% of cereals. The county’s total farmed area stood at 490,000 hectares in 2022, and its food sector employs around 100,000 people.

In the local elections in May, Reform wrested control of Lincolnshire county council from the Tories. Greater Lincolnshire also elected its first metro mayor – Boris Johnson loyalist and middle finger-raiser Andrea Jenkyns for Reform. Lincolnshire, it seems, is fast becoming one of the party’s heartlands. And as I discovered on a trip to the county for a new Novara Media documentary, Reform’s popularity among farmers is part of the reason why. 

Henry Ward is an arable farmer on the east edge of Lincoln. A lifelong Tory voter, he said he’d been willing to give Keir Starmer’s government a chance, but that it’s been “a car crash ever since Labour got in, especially for farming”. Ward told Novara Media that he switched to Reform in May, his “only political home”, in part due to the party’s support for farmers.

“I’m a fan [of Farage]” he said. “Nigel comes across as straightforward and patriotic for us as great British people. We’re absolutely fed up with Westminster politics. Reform, I think, is saying the right things.” 

Cereal farmer Henry Moreton, based near Woodhall Spa, said he likes Reform’s “attitude” on how “we need to back British agriculture and back British business”. He described the party as “a bit more open to how farming is part of the fabric of the country”. 

Ward and Moreton aren’t alone. One cattle farmer said she was happy to give Reform a shot, as a party promising to make change, while another said that “Farage has got his head screwed on – and he’s a countryside man”.

This image is one that ex-banker Farage, often seen donning countryside-coded attire, has long been trying to cultivate. But it’s not all aesthetics: Reform’s 2024 manifesto also pitched itself towards the farming community in a big way. Reform promised to increase England’s farming budget from £2.4bn to £3bn and “put British agriculture back on its feet”. The party said it would ensure 70% of food eaten in the UK is produced domestically, address supermarket price fixing, slash business rates on farm shops to zero and promote clear food labelling to allow consumers to reliably support British farmers. And it said taxpayer-funded organisations will be compelled to source three-quarters of their food from the UK in order to help reduce the environmental impact of food imports. 

Labour’s announcement on inheritance tax rules changes in last year’s autumn budget also proved a gift for Reform when it came to winning over farmers. Under the changes, inherited agricultural assets worth more than £1m will be taxed at a rate of 20% – half the usual rate – from April 2026. The Country Land and Business Association estimates this could affect up to 70,000 farms in the UK.

Farage was front and centre at a Westminster protest in February against these inheritance tax changes. Addressing the ‘tractor rally’ in a waxed Barbour-style jacket and checked flat cap, he even appealed to Lincolnshire farmers specifically. “Could it be they [Labour] just want lots of land because they’re planning for another five million people to come into the country in the next few years?” he said. “They want to cover tens of thousands of grade one agricultural land in places like Lincolnshire with solar panels. Could it be that there’s an even deeper, more sinister agenda behind what they’re doing?” 

Reform’s strategy of capitalising on farmers’ anger about the tax is working. Moreton told Novara Media that it was a “spiteful tax” that will “tear the heart out of British agriculture”. Ward, who farms in partnership with his grandfather, said he was “seriously concerned for [his] grandpa’s wellbeing” because he now “feels like a complete burden”. He told Novara Media that Reform’s opposition to the tax, meanwhile, was “common sense”.

Tom Bradshaw, farmer and president of the National Farmers’ Union, told Novara Media that Reform’s policies aren’t necessarily all good for farmers, however. “Farage would be willing to do a deal with Trump which would undermine our standards and critically damage UK agriculture,” he said, while noting that the promise to overturn the family farm tax “would be very, very welcome”. 

Then there’s the impact of Brexit on farming. Farmers’ support for a rebranded Brexit party – led by a single-issue campaigner who pressured prime minister David Cameron into holding a referendum on EU membership – might seem counterintuitive. Brexit’s impact on farmers hasn’t, by their own admission, been particularly positive. 

According to one 2023 survey, 69% of farmers said Brexit had had either a “fairly negative” or “very negative” impact on their businesses. Farmers cited increased input costs, loss of EU subsidies, import and export issues and labour shortages as their top reasons. “Since the decision to leave the EU, export volumes with the EU have fallen by 34%,” Bradshaw said. “It’s not a great recipe for success.” 

But although farmers admit Brexit hasn’t yielded great results for them, not all blame Farage. “We were sold a fairytale, and we got a nightmare,” Moreton said. “I think if we’d had Brexit like Farage wanted it, it would have been better. But it got watered down and watered down. So basically, we became an island state with European rules.”

Ward is more circumspect, saying he still isn’t a “fan of Brexit”, and that future trade deals and “importing chlorinated chicken” are a worry. “I know Reform would sign up to that in a heartbeat,” he said. “So it’s not perfect.”

One controversial area of Reform’s agricultural policy is its pledge to scrap green farming subsidies and to stop the use of ‘productive land’ for green energy and rewilding. Reform rejects climate-related policies more broadly, and has promised to scrap the UK’s net zero goals – in line with the interests of donors, 92% of whom represent oil and gas interests or polluting industries, or are public climate deniers. 

The Nature Friendly Farming Network has concerns about the long-term sustainability of Reform’s package for farmers. Martin Lines, an arable farmer and the network’s CEO, said he’s worried about Reform’s promise to remove funding for green initiatives that help keep farmers’ businesses afloat. “If we don’t invest in nature, pollinators, healthy soil,” Lines said, “where will food security be in a few years time?” 

But despite concerns around Brexit, US trade deals and green subsidies, many farmers still see Reform as the best alternative. 

“I’m not an absolute fanatic, but I do like how they’re pretty straightforward, common sense, down the line,” said Ward. “They just give me a sense that maybe they can sort this mess out.”