JEREMY CLARKSON BANS ALL LABOUR MPS FROM HIS PUB
Jeremy Clarkson has become the latest landlord to bar all Labour MPs from entering his pub as part of a backlash against high taxes.
The veteran television presenter had initially banned just Sir Keir Starmer from The Farmer’s Dog when it opened last year.
But now he has decided to add all 404 Labour MPs to the list of those barred from the pub near Burford in the Cotswolds.
However, Clarkson said that Markus Campbell-Savours, the former Labour MP who lost the whip last week after voting against the Government’s plans to tax inherited agricultural land, would still be able to visit his establishment.
It comes as part of a national campaign called “No Labour MPs” which aims to bar Labour members of parliament from pubs and restaurants around the country as part of a backlash against rising taxes affecting the hospitality sector. The campaign started on Friday and is led by Andy Lennox who runs the Old Thatch pub in Dorset.
Posters stating that hospitality businesses are being “taxed out” have been put up in dozens of premises across the country, highlighting the need for a VAT cut to 13 per cent “in line with the rest of Europe and Ireland”.
Clarkson wrote in a post on X: “To be clear, I have banned all Labour MPs from my pub, except one: Markus Campbell Savours.
“He’s welcome any time. And not just because the Labour Party has now sacked him.”
Mr Campbell-Savours, who represents Penrith and Solway in Cumbria, rebelled against Rachel Reeves’s plans to end inheritance tax exemption on farms worth more than £1m.
In the debate, he said: “There remain deep concerns about the proposed changes to agricultural property relief.
“Changes which leave many, not least elderly farmers, yet to make arrangements to transfer assets, devastated at the impact on their family farms.”
He was the only Labour MP to vote against the proposals and was subsequently suspended from the party. However, more than 30 of his colleagues abstained from the motion.
Clarkson has been a long-standing critic of the “tractor tax”, accusing Labour of making life “absolute hell” for farmers.
The 65-year-old has since followed many publicans by taking part in the “No Labour MPs” campaign. It was formed as a protest against the Budget, as many businesses face higher tax bills because pandemic-era business rates relief is scheduled to end in April, having previously been scaled back from 75 per cent to 40 per cent.
Some hospitality and leisure businesses also face increases to their venues’ rateable values, which dictate the business rates they pay.
UK Hospitality, the industry trade body, warned that an average pub’s business rates will have increased by 76 per cent within the next three years, fuelling fears of thousands of jobs being lost.
It comes despite the Chancellor’s claim that she was delivering “the lowest tax rates since 1991” through her 5 per cent tax cut for hospitality and retail businesses.
Last week, the landlady of a Norfolk village’s last remaining pub said she has been forced to close her business because of soaring costs.
Carol Kenny took over the Swan Inn in Mattishall less than 12 months ago, but announced that it will close for the final time on Sunday because of rising rent, bills and business rates.
She told the Eastern Daily Press the Budget was the “final nail in the coffin” for the trade, which threatens to leave the village of 2,500 people without a pub unless a new landlord takes on the lease in the new year.
2025-12-13T11:35:41Z