Call from Senedd members over final say on farming support
He said: 'Today, we're simply asking that this Senedd be given the opportunity to vote: a final, binding vote on the sustainable farming scheme before it is implemented. We all remember last year's protests. We know the strength of feeling across the country.
'A scheme of this scale, affecting over 80% of Wales' land, must carry democratic legitimacy. Let us vote. Let the elected members of this chamber, from every corner of Wales and from every party, have their say.'
The former journalist, who is from a farming family, warned of a 'cliff-edge' in the transition from the basic payment scheme (BPS), which is set to fall by 40 per cent, to the SFS.
He said: "If you don't join the SFS, you forfeit your BPS. If you do join the SFS, you forfeit your BPS entitlements. There's no going back… for you and your business. Is it any wonder anxiety is soaring? Is it any surprise that our farmers' mental health is deteriorating?'
Labour's Lesley Griffiths, a former rural affairs minister, was extremely disappointed to see Welsh ministers cut a target of 43,000 hectares of new woodland by more than 60 per cent, with plans for 10 per cent tree cover on every farm ditched.
Peter Fox, a Tory council leader-turned Senedd member, said he was planning to retire as a farmer having 'just about had enough', with the new SFS 'still laden with bureaucracy'.
'Most farmers just want to farm,' he said. 'They want to produce food and they want to look after their farm… but the priority in this SFS is clearly no longer food production.'
Labour's Lee Waters warned the debate around farming has been dragged into 'culture wars', with divisions heightened by political debate.
Deputy first minister Huw Irranca-Davies said Senedd members would get an opportunity to vote on regulations related to payment rates underpinning the scheme in the autumn.
In the final vote before the Welsh Parliament breaks for summer recess, Senedd members voted narrowly, 22-20, against the opposition motion
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Daily Mirror
11 minutes ago
- Daily Mirror
Munroe Bergdorf 'hopeful for Corbyn's new party' as she calls out Labour for no 'backbone'
Munroe Bergdorf has "never been more hopeful" following the announcement of Jeremy Corbyn and Zara Sultana's independent party, but calls on Labour MPs to do better for the trans community Model and trans activist Munroe Bergdoft expressed her disappointment at the Labour party's treatment of trans people in the UK. At the London Trans+ Pride launch event, she told a panel of activists that the Labour party have "shown who they are and have cemented who they are in history." She later added that she has "a lot to shout at this government, but reasoning with them is fruitless." In preparation for London Trans+ Pride, set to take place on July 26, Bergdorf joined a panel consisting of London Trans+ Pride founding member Lewis G Burton, BAFTA-winning writer and activist Sukey Venables-Fisher and Trans Kids Deserve Better members, Merlin and Cliff. Instilling hope into trans people nationwide, she said: "Just like other civil rights movements before us, things will come to fruition for our movement and for our lives." Bergdorf stated she has "never felt so hopeful" after seeing the announcement of Jeremy Corbyn and Zara Sultana's independent party. Earlier this month, Sultana quit Labour and voiced her frustration with the party, saying "Labour has completely failed to improve people's lives." The 31-year-old wrote in a statement posted to X: "Today, after 14 years, I'm resigning from the Labour Party. Jeremy Corbyn and I will co-lead the founding of a new party, with other Independent MPs, campaigners and activists across the country." Bergdorf admitted that she had considered leaving the UK, but now wants to "stay and fight and see growth and support [Corbyn and Sultana's party]." Corbyn confirmed that "real change is coming" and praised Sultana for helping to build "a real alternative." Whilst the new independent party establishes itself, Bergdorf urged the current Labour government to take action for the transgender community. "To everything single MP in the Labour party on the left; it's time for backbone, it's time to actually do something instead of just talking. Join us, come to trans pride. It's time to show urgency." For more stories like this subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The Weekly Gulp, for a curated roundup of trending stories, poignant interviews, and viral lifestyle picks from The Mirror's Audience U35 team delivered straight to your inbox. Bergdorf and the panellists acknowledged that it's been a tough year for trans people, following the UK Supreme Court ruling. In April 2024, the court ruled in favour of so-called 'gender critical' volunteer organisation For Women Scotland in their appeal against the Scottish Government's usage of the term 'woman'. Lord Hodge, Lady Rose and Lady Simler gave a joint judgment, with which the other Justices agreed, passing down an unanimous verdict that the term 'woman' used in the Equality Act 2010 refers to biological sex. Trans charity Gendered Intelligence told the Mirror at the time that they were disappointed at the ruling, and said the judgement is "likely to empower those who want to exclude trans people, but we trust that this remains a small minority." At the London Trans+ Pride panel, Bergdorf called for meaningful trans allyship, stating that "directing traffic, money, support and awareness to services that support us is paramount... If people are going to be allies they need to make it worth it." Help us improve our content by completing the survey below. We'd love to hear from you!
The Independent
42 minutes ago
- The Independent
There won't be a wealth tax – but Rachel Reeves can't afford to rule it out just yet
Normally, when politicians decline to rule something out, a sceptical media and public believe they are about to do it. But there should be one exception to this rule. Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves and other ministers are refusing to rule out introducing a wealth tax in this autumn's Budget, when the chancellor is likely to raise taxes by at least £20bn to stick within her fiscal rules. I'm told Starmer and Reeves will not bring in a new wealth tax, such as the 2 per cent levy on assets of more than £10m advocated by a growing number of Labour MPs and Neil Kinnock, the party's former leader, to raise £10bn. A wealth tax is an easy slogan and fits on to a banner. It would do nicely for the Starmer allies hoping to nudge him in a more progressive direction as he seeks a long overdue 'story' for his government. But Reeves and Starmer are not convinced. The chancellor thinks wealth taxes don't work. Twelve developed nations had them in 1990s but only three remain; only one, in Switzerland, brings in lots of money. Reeves burnt her own fingers by targeting non-doms – a process begun by Jeremy Hunt, the outgoing Tory chancellor. I'm told Reeves privately dismissed fears the rich would respond by leaving the UK, saying: "They always say that, but it never happens." It is happening, and she is now considering changing her plan to make worldwide assets, including those in foreign trusts, liable to inheritance tax. One government insider told me: 'People can choose where to pay their taxes. It's very easy to move countries and they are doing it.' A new wealth tax would be complex, take years to introduce and probably not be worth the candle. Dan Neidle, founder of Tax Policy Associates, said its study found such a tax would 'lower long-run growth and employment, thanks to a decline in foreign and domestic investment. It would make UK businesses more fragile and less competitive, and create strong incentives for capital reallocation and migration.' Why not just say no to a wealth tax now? Reeves offered one explanation to her Tory predecessor Norman Lamont at a Lords committee hearing this week. He told her he found it 'a bit strange' the government has not ruled out the move. Reeves replied that if she ruled out one tax rise, the media would move on to the next option, and assume that one was going to happen if she failed to rule it out. A fair point – but not her only reason. Reeves and Starmer need to build bridges with the parliamentary Labour Party after it filleted their welfare legislation, so rejecting a wealth tax now would inflame tensions. I suspect that when the Budget comes, Reeves and her allies will whisper to Labour MPs they are introducing a form of wealth tax through other measures, while avoiding headlines about implementing a specific one. Another reason not to rule out a wealth tax is to help message discipline. Labour certainly needs more of that: ministers unwittingly fuelled speculation about tax rises in media interviews by giving different definitions of "working people'. Far easier to say taxes are a matter for the Budget and we don't comment in advance. Some senior Labour figures think Reeves's reticence is because she is considering proposals that are close to being a wealth tax – for example, increasing property-based taxes. I think she should bring in higher council tax bands for the most expensive properties. It's ludicrous that this tax is based on 1991 property values, and that in England, people in homes valued at more than £320,000 pay the same amount in their local authority. Reform could be sold as a genuine levelling up measure the Tories flunked as it would cut bills in the north and Midlands while raising them in the south. Alternatively, Reeves could increase capital gains tax for the second Budget running, perhaps by bringing it into line with income tax rates, which are higher. Some in government favour a rise in income tax with the money earmarked for defence, as I have suggested. Another option is to raise the top rate of income tax from 45 per cent to 50 per cent. But both ideas would leave Labour open to the charge of breaching its manifesto pledge not to increase income tax, national insurance or VAT. Reeves could argue that circumstances had changed in a more dangerous world. But breaking its promise might be a step too far for an already deeply unpopular PM and party. I don't think there will be a wealth tax. However, the rich shouldn't celebrate. The Budget will increase existing taxes on the wealthy, in line with the government's mantra of protecting "working people", while ensuring 'those with the broadest shoulders carry the greatest burden'. Health warning: creating losers is not pain-free for them or the government, as Reeves discovered when she brought in the ' family farms tax '. But reforming some taxes under a better banner – 'fair tax' – is her best shot.
New Statesman
43 minutes ago
- New Statesman
The revenge of the left
Photo byTwo-front wars seldom have happy endings for the combatant in the middle. But Keir Starmer's beleaguered government is now fighting one, following the announcement of the impending arrival of the Corbyn-Sultana party on the left. The emerging, and as yet unnamed new force, secured more than 245,000 sign-ups within twenty-four hours of the announcement by the two former Labour MPs, one of them Starmer's immediate predecessor as Labour leader. As this is being written supporters are registering at 200 a minute, with forty donations a minute too. All polls which have given it as an option register the party making an impact, and one put it level-pegging with Labour. Early days, only polls etc. But it should be clear that Reform UK is now not the only insurgent force that Downing Street chief strategist Morgan McSweeney needs to worry about. Indeed, it is likely that the Corbyn-Sultana party (CSP here on in) will prove more attractive to more Labour voters than the Farageists, very few of whom will ever switch to Starmer according to polling evidence. 'The electorate has twice given its verdict on a Jeremy Corbyn led party' was the only response from a Labour source to the news. OK, let's go there. The Corbyn-led Labour party polled three million more votes in 2017 than Starmer's party managed last year. Indeed, Starmer's Labour even undershot, in vote numbers, the more miserable haul Corbyn Labour secured in 2019. So the electorate may not exactly be where Downing Street imagines it is. One thing is certain – Starmer's five years as Labour leader, and year in government, have opened up enormous space to the party's left. The birth of CSP has been a long time coming. The meandering road to this week's announcement can be traced back to the hundreds of thousands of people who joined Corbyn's Labour, often engaging in politics for the first time, and have since quit. Long marginalised, socialism was back within the Overton Window of the politically-conceivable. The fuse was then lit by Starmer's suspension of Corbyn from Labour in October 2020, and his subsequent exclusion as a Labour candidate. Corbyn himself was long sceptical about the merits of a left-of-Labour electoral challenge, and could point to the wreckage of previous such initiatives – Socialist Labour, Respect, Left Unity and on and on – in his support. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe The game-changer was Gaza and the enormous movement of solidarity with the Palestinian people which developed after October 2023. That movement turned much of its anger against Labour, then in opposition, because of Starmer's blundering endorsement of Israeli war crimes in an LBC radio interview, a position it took him nine days to walk back. British Muslim opinion in particular proved to be irreconcilable, and Labour parted company with one of its staunchest voting blocs. Four independents were elected as MPs alongside Corbyn last year, above all on the Palestine issue. That is more than the aggregate of MPs elected to the left of Labour in all general elections since the second world war. The general election outcome also showed that Labour, beneath its puffed-up first-past-the-post Commons majority, is far more vulnerable to challenge than at any other time since its emergence as a governing force in the aftermath of World War One. The Party won over forty per cent of the vote, whether winning or losing, in all eight elections up to and including 1970. It has reached that benchmark just three times in fourteen elections since – twice under Blair (charisma) and once under Corbyn (authenticity). Its electorate is fragmenting in all directions. We can be sure it will not see forty per cent, or likely even thirty, again under Starmer. After a year in office, its polling is underwater, with resistance to the economic and social strategy of Rachel Reeves joining Gaza as a recruiting sergeant for the left. Now the CSP could be Britain's second biggest party in terms of membership by the end of the weekend. Its main asset at this stage is not just the sense that its two leaders say what they mean and mean what they say – it is enthusiasm. Reform may be cornering the market in anger, channelling the hyper-ventilating tabloid/GB News agenda, itself fuelled by decades of complacent establishment support for capitalist globalisation. But anger isn't the only emotion available. Hope and excitement get a look-in too. Where was the political enthusiasm in the generally enervating election campaign last year? Such as I came across was in a church hall in Chingford where Faiza Shaheen launched her independent campaign having been shamefully axed as Labour candidate on McSweeney's orders after the election had been called; on the streets of neighbouring Ilford North as charismatic British-Palestinian woman Leanne Mohamad came within a few hundred votes of ending Wes Streeting's political career, and in a garden in Bristol where Green canvassers massed to send their co-Leader Carla Denyer to Westminster. In Islington North too, of course, where a national mobilisation of the left helped return Corbyn for an eleventh term as their local MP, despite both Peter Mandelson and Paul Mason putting in appearances to try to get Labour over the line. Enthusiasm is not really the Prime Minister's thing, and to be fair he has never pretended otherwise. But he did promise 'Corbynism with competence' – the nod to his predecessor's policy agenda has long been discarded, and the last year has shredded whatever reputation he had for the latter. Nevertheless, the Corbyn years at Labour's helm have shown the limitations of enthusiasm alone. Can the CSP defy history and make a lasting impact? One pre-requisite for doing so must be reaching some form of electoral agreement with the Green Party, themselves presently choosing a new leader, with Zack Polanski's campaign drawing significant 'Corbynista' support. It is clear that in competition the two parties will simply eat each others' votes to a significant extent. United, it is easy to see seats tumbling to a red-green alliance all over the country. The Greens could sweep Bristol, the CSP half of Birmingham. Together, they could defeat Labour almost everywhere in east London. Bye bye, Health Secretary. Moreover, such an alliance would mark the birth of a five-party politics across England, and six-party in Scotland and Wales. Given the prevailing rules, that could see MPs being elected on thirty per cent of their constituency vote in many seats. At that point, predicting the outcome in a particular constituency becomes a lottery. In every seat there could be three or more possible winners. So the non-Labour left could be a significant force in the next House of Commons. But that is very far from certain. Several things could go wrong. One, entirely in the new party's own hands, is that the perennial habit of left-wing Pythonesque factionalism and splits could manifest. It is an open secret that Corbyn was surprised by the decision of the committee then organising the new party to vote for a co-leadership arrangement between him and Sultana, and even more by her subsequent public announcement of it. Nor is it news that Corbyn's own leadership style has its detractors. Unity has been restored – Corbyn and Sultana get on well together and are almost perfectly complementary in every personal characteristic and quality. But there are certainly different perspectives on how the new party should be organised, as well as its political strategy. Its promised founding conference will bear a heavy load. Then there is the possibility that Labour could shoot the CSP fox by actually addressing left-wing concerns. For a moment, after the U-turn on the welfare benefit cuts under backbench pressure, it had seemed that might be possible. The suspension of four MPs from the parliamentary whip punctured that bubble tout suite. The authoritarianism of the Starmer leadership, directed exclusively against the left, looks like remaining its hallmark. Number Ten is determined to foreclose any possibility of a revival of the left within Labour. Previous regimes within the party, of the left or far more often the right, always allowed the other wing of the party to hope for a turn of the wheel in the future. That is not the McSweeney way, and it is certainly one factor powering recruits to the CSP. Securing the support of more Labour MPs and official trade union backing for the CSP will be challenging in the short-term. But if the new party looks popular and properly-run a couple of years down the line, and the government continues on its dismal way, that could very well change. The government is imprisoned both by its commitments – to the electorate, to the City, to Trump – and its prejudices. It hopes that the possibility of Lee Anderson as Home Secretary will drive voters back into its arms in 2029. It also recycles the arguments I and others used in 2019 when pressing against a commitment to hold a second referendum on EU membership – Labour can lose votes to the Liberal Democrats and Greens in many areas without endangering seats. The margin for error in the 'red wall' is next to non-existent. So it proved. But does the argument hold true today? Labour's strategists claim that in 2024 they consciously allowed for a fall in support in safe big city seats in order to make gains where they were needed, in the red wall inter alia. This plan only half-worked at the time. The metropolitan support indeed dropped – in Starmer's Camden constituency he lost half his personal vote, something little remarked on since – but there was no return to voting Labour in seats which had been its traditional strongholds. It elected MPs entirely because of a split in the right. Today, those urban strongholds are not so strong. The day after Sultana's initial announcement that she was quitting Labour I spoke at a Palestine demonstration in Kentish Town, the heart of Starmer's own seat. Every mention of her and the 2024 independent challenger against the Labour leader, Andrew Feinstein, was cheered to the echo. Downing Street will have to listen. Andrew Murray is political correspondent of the Morning Star, a former advisor to Jeremy Corbyn and the author of The Fall and Rise of the British Left and Is Socialism Possible in Britain – Reflections on the Corbyn Years (both Verso). Related
