The last thing the farmers needed was Clarkson and Farage in cosplay

From early morning, they started gathering outside parliament in smart Barbour jackets, flat caps and spotless wellies. Not the farmers – they came later in proper warm clothing that had seen rain before – but the shadow cabinet, looking like a class of 10-year-olds marking World Book Day as the cast of The Sheep-Pig.

Shadow environment secretary Victoria Atkins didn’t seem to have seen the weather report, turning up in a union jack blazer. Vying with her to parade their countryside-loving credentials in green apparel were Nigel Farage and Ed Davey. Even Keir Starmer tried to join in from his latest overseas summit, boasting of a “rural upbringing” and a childhood job picking strawberries.

It was the day the countryside returned en mass to Westminster for the first time since the vast Countryside Alliance march 20 years ago. Men and women, dogs and a lot of children all protesting at Rachel Reeves’s inheritance tax raid. “He is why I’m here,” said arable farmer Richard Jones, from Gloucestershire, pointing to his 14-year-old son Will who hopes to inherit their acres. It wasn’t the 40,000-strong horde that some had predicted but they filled Whitehall to the brim and most of Parliament Square.

When French farmers protested outside the European parliament this year, they dumped tons of manure on the roads outside. Our British farmers are a more genteel breed. The only ordure left at the gates of the House of Commons was dropped by a Met Police horse that got spooked by a passing tractor.

There were six Met Police horses in total, and scores of yellow-jacketed officers braced for what one said had been a rumour of “right-wing extremists”. But it was soon clear they would not be facing any real trouble. The farmers filed past the Cenotaph respectfully, leaving no mess, many carrying bags of vegetables to donate to a food bank to feed hungry Londoners. “We need a bigger lorry – actually, two or three,” said Richard Barker, of charity City Harvest, gazing at some 10 tonnes of donated cabbages, spuds and caulis.

Two tractors suddenly appeared in Whitehall, slowly advancing past the no-entry signs and flattening a red traffic cone. Two police officers blocking their way stared nervously at the four-foot-high wheels and wisely stepped aside. Farage jumped up to pose hanging out of the cab of one, beaming like the cat who stole the creamery.

Lead tractor driver Simon Gerity, from Denham, said he didn’t care if he was arrested. “We’ve got to do it, the government are taking the mickey.” A 74-year-old north Londoner David Hammond yelled from the pavement: “Simon, I’m a Londoner and I support what you’re doing.”

“Starmer the Farmer Harmer” was the insult of choice for jackets and banners. It’s not quite up there with “Maggie Thatcher, Milk Snatcher” yet but it’s a start. “Bullocks to the Budget” read another.

Olly Harrison, the northwest farmer and blogger who organised the protest, started the speeches with “massive thanks to the Met” and a minute’s silence “for those that fed us in two world wars”.

The next drama was the arrival of Jeremy Clarkson. If you’re organising a protest against inheritance tax at 20 per cent on estates worth over a few million quid, it’s probably unwise to give centre stage to a man worth £70m who is on record as stating he bought a farm partly to keep the government’s hands off his money. Challenged about this, Clarkson moaned about the BBC asking him questions and admitted: “I wanted to shoot [pheasants], which comes with the benefit of not paying inheritance tax.”

Kemi Badenoch, still getting used to the idea that a Tory leader can be cheered occasionally, was given polite applause when she mounted the stage to decry a family farms tax that would “destroy farming as we know it”.

The biggest cheers went to the farmers themselves, a long line of speakers with tales of getting up at 4am to feed cows, of performing CPU on sickly lambs in winter, which they all claimed to do for no money at all because of their earnest desire to grow food for the rest of us.

Probably not the best time to mention the 40 per cent inheritance tax that the rest of us will pay on our family homes.

Olly ended his speech with a hint that this genteel form of mass protest might develop into something more French. “Is it the end for British farming?” he asked. “Or it is the beginning of some direct action?” Yellow jackets, anyone? As one of the farmer placards warned: “You’ll be fighting over food if farming dies, not just toilet rolls.”

If Keir Starmer was listening, he might have turned a sickly shade of green.