A trip to meet the tractor truthers of Truro

A long drive down to Cornwall to capture a rally for farmers facing NetZero tyranny

Mar 21, 2024

As a boy I would regularly make the trek down to the far west of Wales in the rear seat (no seatbelt!) of our family car, a Ford Escort 1300 mark 2. I can even recall myself and my younger brother asleep lying down along it, as it was a lengthy journey before the motorway extensions and dual carriageways. My mother was raised on a farm just outside of Haverfordwest, on the road to St Davids, and my grandfather still had cattle and grew wheat when I was young. There was no mains electricity until the 1960s. So I have a little bit of farming blood in me.

This time last week I left home to begin the long trek down to Cornwall, as there was a freedom rally themed around

Bombing down the M5 over the River Avon, there was an odd sound from under my car, rapidly followed with a lot of noise as my exhaust detached. Thankfully the breakdown van was on the scene almost immediately, being one of the busiest stretches of motorway. A few adaptors and clips later, I was on my way with a temporary repair. One person had reached out to me from my social media post saying I was going, and in the “heaven’s above!” category of coincidence, was a welder and sorted me before I drove safely back home.

Truro is a small cathedral city near the southwestern tip of England, and the administrative centre of Cornwall. The historic county has a past that centres on mining, fishing, and more than a few smugglers and pirates. The present economy is dominated by tourism and agriculture. A relatively poor indigenous population rubs shoulders with incomers who buy second homes or relocate from the metropolises. The coastline is beyond fabulous, and the climate is very mild, being so maritime.

Cornwall has a strong identity, and once had its own language that is being revived from the edge of extinction. The white cross on a black background of Saint Piran’s flag was everywhere. To this day, Cornwall has stannary law, which can be successfully invoked as superior to intrusive rules being put in place by corrupt municipal councils. Similar customs like beating the bounds may have become merely symbolic elsewhere in England, but in Cornwall these traditions survive. Hence the significance of a rally in Truro, and my long journey to attend it.

The mass media were there too, and the lonely BBC cameraman is shown where the tractor rally was due to begin. Credit where it is due, he has some nice camera kit! In the official state propaganda there is no discussion of how NetZero is damaging people, and the town centre part of the rally was ignored. You would never know that loads of people beeped their horns in support. While medical freedom campaigners can be smeared as “anti-vaxxers”, it’s harder to denigrate farmers; if you do, are you a crazy “anti-traxxtor"?

It is left to citizen reporters like myself, supported by people like you, to fill in the gap. This is the 27th freedom rally I have attended, and is somewhat different to all the previous ones. It is focused on a tangible industry whose existence is life-giving to everyone; without farmers, we would likely die, as few are equipped to become self-sufficient off the land.

This is very much a grassroots movement, and as befits highly independent-minded farmers, there was a touch of chaos as the instructions of where to assemble and when were ignored! Nonetheless, there was a good attendance, and quite a few other people in cars and Land Rovers along for the convoy.

As symbolic totems go, tractors are impressive!

This photo illustrates a key point: public rallies are now hybrid affairs of the physical world and social media. People who are just onlookers take videos from cars and buses as they go past. They share what they see; if the mass media doesn’t report what is there, it gets noticed. The impact we have in turning up is far more than we might imagine from the numbers involved.

The event then progressed from the edge of the town centre, where the big roads are, towards the old town square. New political parties, like Heritage and Reform, are coming to challenge the old ones like the Conservatives and Labour. Meanwhile, a pro-EU group had their own table. I am glad they are participating in the contest of ideas, and maybe someday they will see how the road to submission via starvation is paved with farm subsidies that give foreign bureaucrats absolute power over food security.

The tractors paraded through the town centre quite a few times; it began to rain more heavily towards the end, and not all my lenses are water resistant. Peaceful gatherings in order to share educational messages are a right that we all have, and I am gaining confidence in exercising that free speech right in an appropriate and responsible way.

Heroes and heroines of our times. Some people will love their country and their fellow man, no matter what the cost, including being denounced by the criminal for protecting the innocent. True spiritual warriors, every single one of them. Even the dog!

A classic tractor. What changes this man has seen. I remember my grandfather giving me rides in the box at the back of his tractor, which was of a similar vintage. My grandmother would welcome us into the farmhouse with her big Welsh arms… “Well I never, look who’s here!” — and the kitchen table would always be covered in a vast trove of food, as that is how you demonstrate your love.

My grandfather married by grandmother when he was 30 and she was 19, if I recall right; they stayed together for over 50 years and had four children. He passed away on the sofa holding a cup of tea that did not spill, having just come back in for a break from gardening. It was 1992, and I was finishing university at the time. I think they would have found this to be a dark time, and not to their taste.

If only the masses understood what is at stake, and why we are fighting for them.

Who is against food security? How can the mass media paint people who care about farmers and food as “right-wing extremists” and “conspiracy theorists”? Yet it is the largely same people who care about all our basic freedoms and customs, which are meant to be protected by constitutional law. Instead, we have a rogue Parliamentary dictatorship, which has assumed sovereignty over the people, becoming their master, not their servant. It feels like something is about to give… maybe nature has a say, too?

It’s always about the children, at the end of the day. How will they remember these days?

There is another tractor rally planned for Monday 25th March at Parliament Square in London. I am hoping to be there. Do join us!

As befitted a rather damp day — I was a bit worried about my camera kit getting too wet — we retreated into the local pub afterwards.

I hope you liked our little virtual rally in Truro, vicariously attended through my camera equipment. You might be living an ocean away, but we are joined by our love of innate freedom, the bounty of nature, and good living from honest labour.