Rowing Back

So, Starmer has rowed back on farm IHT. However…

The important point is not the rowing back. It is the rowing out in the first place.

This was not a policy accident or a Treasury brain-fart. The change was announced, legislated, and voted through. It cleared the Commons. It sat there, calmly, waiting to take effect in 2026. Only then did the tractors appear and the shouting begin. And only then did Labour “listen”.

That sequence matters, because it exposes the method.

Starmerism, as I understand it, is not dithering centrism. It is overreach followed by controlled retreat. You push further than you expect to end up. You absorb the outrage. Then you pull back to roughly where you wanted to land, while allowing everyone to declare victory.

Farmers say they forced a U-turn. The NFU puts out a relieved press release. Rural Labour MPs tell their constituents they fought bravely. Meanwhile the Treasury quietly keeps a reformed inheritance tax regime that no longer treats very large agricultural estates as sacrosanct.

Both sides cheer. Labour keeps most of the substance.

This was not a climbdown from defeat. It was an anchoring move. Start with something that looks brutal. Let the protests burn themselves out. Then soften the edges and call it pragmatism.

You can see the same shape elsewhere. Planning reform. Welfare conditionality. Public sector pay. Push hard, provoke outrage, then retreat just far enough that the centre holds and the original objective survives in diluted but recognisable form.

Critics on the right call this weakness. Critics on the left call it cowardice. Both miss the point. This is a leadership operating with a narrow fiscal corridor, terrified of spooking markets, yet aware that doing nothing is not an option.

The risk is obvious. Do this too often and people learn the script. Escalate early, shout loudly, bring tractors or placards, and force the retreat. Once that happens, overreach stops being a tactic and starts looking like incompetence.

But in this case, the theory holds. The policy was passed. The reaction was measured. The retreat was partial. And the end result sits closer to Starmer’s likely starting point than the noise suggests.

Starmerism, in short, is not flip-flopping. It is engineered conflict with a pre-planned exit. And farm IHT is a textbook example.