Jeremy Clarkson has said he is currently exploring the possibility of setting up a second pub – but warned it won’t be on home soil.
The Clarkson’s Farm star, 66, was speaking on stage at the Tory Party Conference on Monday to take an axe to Andy Burnham’s Labour government over its treatment of farmers.
Clarkson appeared alongside land agent Charlie Ireland, who also features on the Prime Video farming show. Clarkson detailed how that side of his business is ‘very, very difficult’, noting that he is fortunate to have diversified revenue streams.
Among them is The Farmer’s Dog pub on this farm, which opened its doors in 2024 and has drawn headlines in the years since for its steep pint prices and menu of exclusively British-sourced produce.
But Clarkson seems to have his eye on expansion, saying during a session in Birmingham: ‘I am actually looking, as we speak, quite hard, into the possibility of opening another pub.
‘But I can give you all a piece of information right now, it’s not going to be in the UK…’
Clarkson added: ‘Why would anybody set up a business in this country right now?’ The question was met with applause from the audience, which he also joked was on the thinner side.
He continued: ‘You go find a country somewhere, and there will be one, and you go, that’s a good idea, that will employ people and that’s good for farming. See if we can do it abroad somewhere.’
But in the moment, he appeared to throw cold water on the idea, adding: ‘I probably won’t, but I’m dreaming of it.
‘I might have to go to Piddington. That’s abroad isn’t it?’ he added, referring to the Oxfordshire village that dominated headlines last month.
The 350 residents of the village near Bicester voted to become independent of the UK, in protest of plans to house over 1,000 migrants at a former military base nearby.
Elsewhere in the conversation, Clarkson laid out the plight currently facing farmers, following a record hot summer that yielded little in the way of crops.
He said: ‘It’s terrible, is the only way of describing it. We worked really hard all year and we ended up with, I think I’m right in saying, three ounces of hen food.
‘It was an absolute disaster on the farming side but, I mean, luckily we’ve got other projects going on now. But the farming is very, very difficult – very, very difficult at the moment.
‘I’m very fortunate that I do have other income streams and newspaper columns, but if you’re an ordinary farmer, it’s not just the weather.
‘The attacks come from everywhere – whether it’s Iran or Ukraine or taxes or energy costs – whatever it might be, it’s just relentless.’
