Farmer fight: Jeremy Clarkson versus Roald Dahl

“Never pickeuMP a fight with a profession that appears in a children’s book” has become a near-universal political rule of thumb since the advice first appeared in two decades ago. Fishermen must be pampered; doctors and nurses placated; photo opportunities are sought with people who have jobs, rather than sending emails. But what happens if that profession is the villain?In “Fantastic Mr Fox”, introduces the farmers Boggis, Bunce and Bean who are “as nasty and mean as any men you could meet”. In “The Animals of Farthing Wood”, a farmer shoots Mrs Pheasant (“My wife!” cries Mr Pheasant, after seeing her corpse). In “Chicken Run”, a British film, wily poultry attempt to escape their fate as the filling of Mrs Tweedy’s Chicken Pies.Farmers are often the baddies in children’s books and sometimes the losers in British politics. The Labour government gave them a sharp poke with a hoe in the by closing a loophole that allowed them to pass on land tax-free. The aim was to stop billionaires from buying vast amounts of farmland to dodge tax; the effect was to annoy Britain’s farmers, who now face a (still discounted) 20% rate on farmland worth more than £1m ($1.3m). The choice had a crude logic: of all the special interest groups to take on, farmers are one of the most politically feeble.At first, their weakness is strange. Despite a childhood of anti-farmer propaganda, Britons are fond of farmers. They enjoy the countryside that farmers have manicured. “Clarkson’s Farm”, which follows the travails of motorhead-turned-farmer , is the most popular show on Amazon. Yet this affection is shallow. Most Britons say they would pay more to buy British, but only in terms of pennies. Price trumps quality, animal welfare and farmer comfort. Supermarkets are happy to squeeze farmers; consumers are content to reap the benefits. Food patriotism comes at a price many are unwilling to pay.When it comes to imposing their will on governments, British farmers have little practice. They are less militant than their European peers. If European farmers see themselves as latter-day peasants, then British farmers play the role of the landed gentry from whom their parents often bought the farms in the first place (ironically, these farms were generally sold to pay stiff death duties). Naturally, the former are keener on revolution than the latter.In the European Union, British farmers could hide behind their ferocious continental allies. Farmers from Ireland to Poland make a near-annual trip to Brussels to burn tyres, douse police in milk and dump dung outside the European Commission’s offices. British farmers reaped the grotesque benefits—agricultural subsidies are still about a third of the ’s budget—without quite realising that their own government would prune them if it could.After Brexit, Britain has enjoyed a period of political price discovery. Areas sealed off from direct control, such as agricultural and trade policy, returned from Brussels to Westminster. In trade negotiations, most countries keep their own farmers off the table; for Britain, farmers were the main course. Australia and New Zealand, agricultural superpowers, leapt at securing tariff-free market access. Antipodean farmers cheered; British farmers screamed. No one listened.That this took place under a Tory government demonstrates how few friends farmers have, politically. The Conservative Party, traditionally the party of rural England, decided farmers were a necessary sacrifice for quick post-Brexit wins. Once the House of Lords represented the land; now it represents donors, do-gooders and retired politicians propounding sensible opinions they could never air in office. British elections are not settled in the English countryside. Labour may boast s in rural Oxfordshire and East Anglia. But it is a moment of political trivia—did you know voted Labour?—rather than a new political geography.Some like to imagine that Britain, and much of the West, is on the brink of rural revolution. Just look at the Dutch. In 2023, the Citizen-Farmer Movement came first in elections for its upper house. Could Britain not follow suit? Perhaps Mr Clarkson could be its head. But the Netherlands has a party for farm-lovers for the same reason it has parties for conservative fiscal liberals, social liberals, Calvinists, animal-lovers and the over-50s. Now, the Citizen-Farmer Movement polls at 4%, just behind the Party for the Animals. Mr Clarkson, who initially bought his farm for the tax break, would have a big job.Such a revolution would require a hitherto hidden political nous from the country’s farmers. Supporting Brexit was hardly the first strategic error of Britain’s rural communities. What political capital they do enjoy is often squandered. In the early 2000s, the Countryside Alliance, a lobby group for rural life, was able to conjure an army of tweed to march through London. Yet it focused almost entirely on the right to hunt with dogs, which was banned under New Labour (one banner read “They will ban sex next!”) It succeeded in making Sir Tony Blair’s life, briefly, a misery; it did little to improve the livelihoods of British farmers.And so farmers will fight. The National Farmers’ Union warn of “militant protest”. A rally later this month may rival the size of the futile marches Sir Tony endured. It is a plot to snarl the government with sob stories of multi-generational farmers forced to sell by a metropolitan elite who care little about the countryside and understand less. Most likely, they will do little better than their literary cousins. In “Fantastic Mr Fox”, the farmers are unaware that Mr Fox has broken into their storehouses and gorged on their chickens, turkeys and cider. Instead Boggis, Bunce and Bean wait for Mr Fox to appear from his den. He never does.