UK farmers in tractors head to Parliament to protest rules they say threaten livelihoods

LONDON: Farmers drove dozens of tractors in a slow-motion convoy towards Britain’s Parliament on Monday to protest post- Brexit rules and trade deals that they say are endangering livelihoods and food security.

Supporters of the campaign groups Save British Farming and Fairness for Farmers of Kent rolled from southeast England and through southern districts of the capital, bound for Parliament Square, where dozens of supporters waited to welcome them.

A line of tractors flying Union Jack flags or signs reading “Stop substandard imports” snaked along the River Thames and towards the Houses of Parliament before circling Parliament Square to cheers and honking horns.

Britain has so far not seen large-scale farmers’ protests like those that have snarled cities in France and other European countries. Farmers from across the 27-nation European Union have protested against what they see as unnecessary bureaucratic rules, clean-air and soil targets and unfair competition from abroad that, they say, is driving them toward bankruptcy.

U.K. agriculture has been heavily affected by Britain’s exit from the EU, which took Britain out of the bloc’s free trade zone and complex web of farming rules.