Jim Allister received a rousing reception at the UFU organised farm family tax protest on Monday night.
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00:00It's easy for a politician to come to an event like this and say the things that people want to hear.
00:10But you can judge whether a politician really cares by how they vote.
00:18I must say to you I was very saddened that when it came to the vote on this pernicious budget
00:26that only half of Northern Ireland's MPs were there to vote.
00:34Sinn Féin's MPs of course prioritise their ideology of abstention over caring about saving their family farm.
00:46The Alliance MP wasn't there to vote.
00:50Two, one of the two SELP MPs wasn't there to vote.
00:56And the one who did was there voting with the government.
01:00I'm glad Mr Chairman I can move this audience in the eye tonight
01:06and tell you I spoke, I voted against and will continue to oppose this iniquity which has been put upon me.
01:16This raid on farming families has come at the worst possible time.
01:32Farm incomes are falling, overheads are rising
01:40and farms are being crippled and denied the right to expand by the folly of Minister Muir's ammonia policy.
02:00Which is restricting the desire, the need for investment in farms, to grow the business, to prepare it for the next generation.
02:12Why? Because of an absurd, unworkable, intolerable policy over ammonia.
02:26And if there's one message that those who don't control the budget should take away from this meeting tonight
02:34it's to allow farmers to get off their knees, to expand, to build, to grow their businesses
02:42and to lift from them the burden of foolish policies that are coming out of Stormont.
02:54And on top of that you're defamed as those who are responsible for what they, when government are those who have failed us in respect of what they did.
03:10Let me be very clear with you. This is an iniquitous assault upon our farming community.
03:24The reasons which brought in agricultural relief on inheritance tax 40 years ago were sound reasons.
03:36They are still sound reasons. And what were they? That farmers are asset rich but cash poor.
03:46Therefore if you're going to continue with farming you have to preserve the heritage and the inheritance of farming.
03:54Those were the reasons why the concessions were brought in. Those reasons have not changed.
04:04The only thing that's changed is that sadly we now have a socialist government that has no time for farming, has no interest in farming
04:16and has launched this ideological assault upon the farming industry.
04:22By gathering here tonight you demonstrate what those of us who go to Parliament in the main have been saying
04:30that you are the backbone of this economy, that if this economy is to survive and to grow then we have to preserve the farming community
04:43and you cannot preserve the farming community if you create a circumstance where a farm has to be stripped down, sold off when someone dies.
04:54That is the cruel reality of what the government is doing in this situation.
05:00So I'm delighted to see the strength of feeling here today. It has always been a burden on those of us who are in Parliament to make sure that we stand up and fight.
05:12Every time I walk into a Commons and this is being debated I will think of this vast crowd and think of my duty to you and I trust I will not fail you. Thank you very much.