
After major protests across the UK at the end of last year, anger from farmers at tax changes shows no sign of abating.
The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) has planned a nationwide day of action for 25 January. In Scotland this is set to include “coordinated tractor rallies” across the country.
While the protests have focused on tax and other pressures faced by the farming industry, there are concerns that some groups are attempting to capitalise on the farmers’ cause to peddle conspiracy theories and misinformation.
Ferret Fact Service explains.

Why are farmers protesting?
Farmers are angry at changes to inheritance tax announced by the Labour government in October. Thousands marched on London in November 2024 to protest the policy, which some view as the “last straw” after a series of decisions by governments which have been unpopular with farmers.
From April 2026, farms will no longer be eligible for full relief from inheritance tax. Instead, full relief will only apply to the first £1m of assets passed down.
Anything over £1m will be charged inheritance tax at 20 per cent – half the usual inheritance tax – although some additional relief could be available, particularly for married couples.
Many farmers claim that their businesses do not generate enough money to pay inheritance tax bills due to a range of factors including rising costs and cuts to subsidies.
The NFU argues the only option for many farmers would be to sell their farms to afford tax bills which could, it claims, impact the amount of food the UK produces.
The government has countered that most farms won’t pay inheritance tax – a claim the NFU rejects – and that money raised by the changes is needed to pay for public services.
The policy has also been described by some experts as an attempt to stop wealthy people from buying up farmland to avoid paying inheritance tax.
‘No Farmers, No Food’

One group which has gained traction in farming debates in the last year is No Farmers, No Food.
It has garnered over 130,000 followers on social media, more than the NFU itself, and its yellow logo is increasingly spotted both online and at protests. Scottish politicians have shared No Farmers, No Food posts on social media and the Tories’ agriculture spokesperson, Jamie Halcro Johnston, has appeared wearing one of its badges outside the Scottish Parliament.
No Farmers, No Food was founded by PR expert and GB News regular, James Melville.
Melville – who has over half a million followers on X – says he grew up on a family farm in Fife and started the group to provide a “unified and non-partisan campaign” for farmers.
Yet on his personal accounts he has posted and shared misinformation including around conspiracy topics like 15 minute cities, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the ‘Great Reset’, as well as the extent of deaths from Covid-19.

Melville has called net zero policies to limit climate change a “con” aimed at making money for corporations.
While No Farmers, No Food has largely focused on the impacts of the inheritance tax in recent months, its mission statement published in February 2024 took aim at net zero.
“The government’s obsession with net zero is having a devastating impact on British farming,” the group claimed in a statement that said one of its objectives was to “push back against unrealistic net zero policies”. The campaign has also argued that farming is being “sacrificed on the altar of net zero”.
Posts by the group on social media also attract comments from conspiracy theorists. One farmer has described being added to a campaign WhatsApp chat after an invite by Melville. He claimed the group was “toxic” with members “fighting amongst each other” about Covid-19 vaccines and discussing “uprisings” against the WEF.
Despite outlining plans for one nearly a year ago, No Farmers, No Food has no website. A limited company which names Melville and two others as directors was set up in April last year but is yet to file any accounts.
Melville says the group receives no outside funding and has no political agenda. But it has been accused of being an ‘astroturfing’ group – a type of campaign that appears to be grassroots but is actually a front for commercial or political interests.
No Farmers, No Food does have a steering group of farmers that help run the campaign, but there is no publicly available list of who is involved.
Together
Melville also sits on the ‘cabinet’ of another contentious organisation, Together.
Together was launched in 2021 by businessman Alan D Miller initially to oppose a number of Covid-19 measures including lockdowns and vaccinations for children. In January 2024, the group criticised then prime minister Rishi Sunak for “mindlessly” claiming Covid-19 vaccines are safe.
The group is also vocally against net zero policies which it says are based on “wildly exaggerated” fears about the future.
Together’s opposition to net zero has seen it be heavily involved in a campaign against what it describes as “crackpot” low emissions zones and low traffic neighbourhoods, both policies aimed at reducing air pollution.
The group produced a report in 2023 alleging that clean air policies such as low emissions zones were “not based on science and not democratic”.
Together says it is run “carefully on very limited resources”. The most recent company accounts show it had nearly £300,000 in the bank in August 2023.
Prior to the inheritance tax changes, Together only sporadically posted about farming but it has become a clear focus of its online activity in recent months.
Figures including Jeremy Clarkson, Love Island stars and Nigel Farage were seen holding placards bearing the group’s logo at the London rally in November.

Clarkson himself has suggested that the inheritance tax changes are part of a “sinister plan” by Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves to “carpet bomb our farmland with new towns for immigrants and net zero windfarms”. “But before they can do that, they have to ethnically cleanse the countryside of farmers,” the former Top Gear host wrote in The Sun.
Together has repeatedly shared posts from another online group called Farmers to Action which was launched in November 2024. Alan D Miller has appeared in videos posted by Farmers to Action and The Ferret contacted Together to confirm whether the two groups are linked but received no response.
How have conspiracies impacted protests in Europe?
The farmers’ protests in the UK follow closely on the heels of wider discontent across Europe in recent years.
High profile protests in the Netherlands, for example, have focused on government measures to reduce nitrogen emissions from livestock.
Those protests were seized upon by conspiracy theorists including those who claimed the government measures were an effort to shut down Dutch farms to make space for asylum seekers.
This echoes the so-called ‘great replacement theory’, a debunked far-right conspiracy theory that claims elites are trying to replace Europe’s white populations with non-white immigrants – particularly those from Muslim-majority countries.
Experts have warned that farmers are being targeted by conspiracy theorists and far-right narratives because they often feel hardest hit by efforts to limit climate change, particularly after the pandemic and energy crisis left many in financial difficulties.
A study last year found that over 80 per cent of those using EU farmers’ protests to spread misinformation belonged to far-right groups.
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Main image: Tractors parked and road traffic at a standstill in the European Quarter in Brussels. Credit: European Commission (Christophe Licoppe)