Dozens of Kent farmers have descended on Westminster in protest at the government’s new ‘death’ tax which they claim will destroy rural family businesses built up over generations.

They are joining thousands more from across the country in a mass protest calling on Chancellor Rachel Reeves to scrap her planned 20% inheritance tax raid on farmland and property worth more than £1 million.

The demonstration parade will set off at around 11am while the National Farmers Union will be holding a huge rally with MPs in a bid to urge backbenchers to block the new tax.

Among those taking part will be Kim Gower whose family runs Blandred Farm at Acrise near Folkestone. She is bringing bags of potatoes to give away as part of the country’s biggest ‘food bank’.

She admits to having “sleepless nights” and says the new tax burden could cost the business up to £3 million when handed on to the next generation.

“It’s going to be a peaceful, respectful demonstration because we need to keep the public on our side and we are already getting a lot of support,” she said.

Martin Twyman, 84, who farms at Littlebourne, near Canterbury, says the family business has been passed down over almost 100 years but could face a tax bill of almost £2 million.

He says he is now “deeply worried” about its future.

“I would love my family to continue the business that my father started - and for the next generation and their children,” he says

“But the reality is my family could be left with a huge tax bill which would mean having to sell off lots of land - and then it would make it unviable.”

Also protesting is George Holdstock whose family runs the EH Holdstock & Son farms at Littlebourne.

He described the budget announcement as “incredibly cruel” for farmers.

“The reality is that returns from farming are very small compared to the value of the land,” he said.

“This tax simply discourages investment and .threatens the ability of the next generation to carry on family farms.”

Previously farmers and their businesses benefitted from 100% agricultural and business property relief which relieved them of a tax burden when handing on the farms to the next generation.

But farmers like Michael and Rosemary Sargent, from near Biddenden, now fear their inheritance tax bill could be as high as £800,000.

They live at White House Farm, which Michael inherited from his father and where there are now three generations living.

The family has 196 acres, rents 300 more, and makes its money from selling milk from 210 pedigree Jersey cows, a herd started in 1963 with just two beasts from Ashford market.

They have invested heavily in expensive milking ‘robots’ which is time-saving but might now increase the value asset of the farm for taxation purposes.

Michael, 71, said: “I haven't got that sort of money to pay the tax bill. It's a very uncertain time for farming. I’m not sure the government knows what the changes might mean for us.”

His son Peter, a 40-year-old father-of-two, speaks enthusiastically about the success of the business over the generations but fears much of Kent's farmland, including his own, will end up under houses or massive tracts of solar panels.

“Where is the food going to come from, then?” he asks. “There is so much global instability around food and we need to be producing as much of it as we can.

“But farmers are being backed into a situation of either we sell up or sell the land to pay the tax but be left with an unviable business or have an unserviceable debt on a small profit margin. Most won't be able to.

“This will rip out the heart of Kent and rural England.”

More than 170 angry farmers and businesses have written to Kent MPs over the Budget’s “anti-rural” measures.

The government claims only a quarter of farm estates will be hit by the tax but the National Union of Farmers calculates it will be more like two-thirds.

Today, NFU president Tom Bradshaw will tell MPs that farms producing the country’s food will need to be broken up and sold as a result of the policy, “because farmers simply won’t have the money to pay this tax any other way”.

“Our request is simple – this is a policy that will rip the heart out of Britain’s family farms, launched on bad data with no consultation and it must be halted and considered properly, taking in the views of the experts not just Treasury civil servants,” he will say.

He will urge members to tell MPs how the policy affects them, their families and their future, and said farmers would not give up or stop fighting the inheritance tax changes nationally and locally in every constituency.

Ahead of the protests, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said her party would “staunchly oppose the family farm tax, which threatens our vital rural economy and our food security, with increased costs and a greater reliance on imports”.

The party pointed to figures from the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) that suggest an average 250-acre arable farm will be forced to sell 20% of its land under Labour’s plans.

The farmers insist it will be a peaceful protest but the Metropolitan Police has drafted in extra officers.