Rhoda Grant pours petrol on flames of Labour’s contentious farm tax
In searching for a class warrior in Labour’s ranks, even earnest conspiracy theorists would be hard-pressed to single out Rhoda Grant for such a label.
But that was before she uttered what sounded like a brusque instruction to farmers to stop whingeing and sort out their affairs rather than protesting against a new taxation regime being brought in by the Labour Government.
A long-time member of the Scottish Parliament, Ms Grant has represented her Highlands and Islands regional constituency for nearly a quarter of a century without ever, to my certain knowledge, becoming the centre of a full-blown political controversy. Until now, that is …
Unfortunately, for her reputation as a seasoned, but moderate-in-all-things Labour politician, the best advice she could give a farmer from southwest Scotland sounded pretty brutal.
“Put your affairs in order” was how she responded to a complaint about the massive financial hit he’s now due to suffer because of the Government’s new taxation rules for agriculture.
While it might have been wise advice from an accountant drawing up a last will and testament, it was not exactly the sort of statement we’re accustomed to hearing from politicians who are seeking to defend a controversial policy.
Indeed, her words were akin to pouring petrol on the flames that the new taxation rules have already ignited in the farming world.
And as such it may well be seen as the Labour Party’s stock response to critics of Rachel Reeves’s proposal in advance of a mass protest by farmers at the Commons next Tuesday. It will certainly be trotted out by the Chancellor’s enemies.
It is true that Ms Grant, Scottish Labour’s rural affairs spokesman, sought to defuse the situation with a fulsome apology.
In addition, she insisted that her comments were general advice to all farmers rather than a personal response to Kenny Campbell, the farmer in question, who was recovering from cancer and whose case had been raised by Finlay Carson, the Tory MSP.
Kenny Campbell
And while she apologised “for any upset caused” and added that “no offence was intended”, it was all too late because her words have already become stock in trade for her opponents with the Tories’ Meghan Gallagher saying that “rather than having sympathy” with the farming community, she was simply telling them to get their affairs in order.
In a somewhat remarkable change of routine for the Scottish Parliament, the Tories have joined forces with the SNP to support a motion demanding that the Government scrap the tax.
There is absolutely no chance of the Chancellor agreeing to that, at least not as a result of this unusual Tory/SNP deal.
But it does underline the widespread view that Labour either doesn’t understand the farming sector in Scotland or doesn’t care. Or both.
Ms Grant might well have represented vast tracts of rural Scotland, except for one brief four-year period, for 25 years but the Highlands and Islands region is noted more for its crofts and smallholdings than for large dairy farms, such as that farmed by Mr Campbell.
Labour’s stock response is that many, if not most, farmers will escape the worst effects of the new taxation regime. But they are a long, long way from proving that to be the case.
However, in the longer term might this new deal between Tories and Nats over farm taxes signal some kind of rapprochement between these two dyed-in-the-wool enemies?
After all, they can easily outpunch Labour at Holyrood, if not Westminster. Are they each prepared to sup with the devil?