Tractors take over central London in protest against chlorinated chicken

By Sian Bayley, Local Democracy Reporter

There’s few things as annoying when out for a drive as getting stuck behind a tractor.

But it’s the sort of thing that doesn’t usually happen in London.

So anyone out and about in central London yesterday lunchtime might have got a bit of shock when they got stuck behind not just one, but a whole line of tractors.

It wasn’t a case of farmers getting seriously lost, but a protest. A very slow-moving protest.

The protesters were campaigning to “save Britain from chlorinated chicken and hormone-fuelled beef”.

The campaigners, who are part of the group Save British Farming, left New Covent Garden Market, in Nine Elms, at 1pm.

The market, which opened in 1974, is one of the largest wholesalers in the country, and was chosen as a starting point for the protest due to its large size, which meant it was able to host lots of tractors and protesters, while maintaining social distancing.

It is currently undergoing a major redevelopment to create Brand New Covent Garden Market.

The protesters, including a number of farmers and Celebrity Masterchef winner Emma Kennedy, say they are worried about the impact of cheap food imports on farming.

They drove to Parliament Square to protest against the government’s Agriculture Bill, which they say “will ditch British animal welfare and environmental standards for farm imports, flood the UK market with cheap, low-quality food and destroy Britain’s farming industry”.

This is the group’s first event, but they are planning a number of activities over the summer.

After the protest they will be asking supporters to write to their MPs and supermarkets to ask that the British EU food standards are kept.

Several Londoners have tweeted pictures of the protest, many of them confused about why there were so many tractors on the capital’s streets.

One said that it wasn’t “terribly clear” why they were there, and that the banners on the tractors were too small to read.

Nine Elms resident Kathryn Geels said: “It’s quite amazing, I didn’t expect it. You definitely don’t usually see tractors in the city.”

Pictured top: The tractors driving over Westminster Bridge yesterday