What's behind the farmers' protests?

A deep dive into the latest rebellion to upend politics

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From Berlin to Bucharest, 2024 has been marked by the sight of farmers taking to the streets, in their tractors, to protest. Dutch politics have been upended. Rome has witnessed legions of tractors driving past the Colosseum, making their anger heard. And now, we are seeing the same protests here in Britain.

The rural workers who once-upon-a-time brought us the Peasant’s Revolt are now mobilising once more, with protests as far south as Dover and as far north as the Cairngorms. Leading the charge were farmers in Wales when, in February, the Senedd played host to what the Countryside Alliance hailed as ‘the largest rural protest in twenty years,’ with a turnout in excess of 3,000.

Welsh farmers and their supporters, flanked by dozens of shadow Cabinet Ministers and opposition MPs, were protesting against Welsh Labour’s proposed changes to farming subsidies. Gareth Wyn Jones, a Welsh farmer and one of the leading activists in this embryonic movement, likened the change to Margaret Thatcher’s decimation of the coal industry 40 years ago.

Then, last month, tractors rolled into Westminster. More than 150 farm vehicles took to the streets of London in a "go-slow" convoy, organised by national campaign groups and which projected their core battle cry: “No Farmers, No Food.”

But what lies behind the protests, which are now reshaping politics in several European states? What are the farmers, who I spoke to, unhappy about? And why do I think, in a year which already looks set to deliver a big populist rebellion against the established political class, this growing rebellion is one to watch?