Critics say changes to inheritance tax and nature-friendly subsidies could break up family farms and risk food security

After this week’s budget, the usually mild-mannered National Farmers’ Union president, Tom Bradshaw, blasted: “Before the election Keir Starmer promised to establish a new relationship with farming and the countryside. Well, he’s certainly done that.”

This highly unusual intervention from the body, which typically favours being “in the room” with prime ministers rather than publicly attacking them, reflected a strength of feeling in the agricultural world not felt since the unpopular Brexit trade deals.