‘ LABOUR ROOTED IN URBAN ISSUES’
SITTING at the head of his sixthgeneration, 130- yearold family business in rural North Yorkshire, Robert Smith sees the complex picture of issues affecting his community every day. Complex issues around eco- balance and moorland management, and the sustainability of farming practice lead him to pause as he ponders his priority list, alongside fears over young people’s futures in traditional industries.
There is the post- Brexit debate over subsidies, he says, affordable homes, and chatter over a much- touted “impending exodus” of urban communities in search of a “rural idyll”.
Then there are fishing rights, which stand high on his agenda – he would dearly love to buy Whitby fish in a Whitby shop.
And at the mention of broadband, the co- director of Richardson & Smith, a traditional rural practice surveyors and estate agents and owners of Ruswarp livestock market, chuckles ironically, adding: “What broadband? That would certainly be music to my ears.”
It is this intertwined tapestry of concerns which has for so long been considered as solved by only a Conservative government, with 87.5 per cent of Yorkshire’s rural or semi- rural constituencies voting blue in December.
And now a major new report has found Labour has continually ignored the countryside, leading to a collapse in rural votes and the perception that the party serves only the urban electorate.
Research from the Countryside Alliance, shared exclusively with The Yorkshire Post, found that not only has Labour consistently failed to produce policies that appeal to rural voters, but party activists in seats which were rural or semirural refused to recognise they were in fact rural.
And this has led to a collapse in the countryside vote which would be essential for the party to be able to form a government in the future.
The report, which has been released today, details how after Tony Blair’s 1997 and 2001 general election wins, Labour held 170 out of the 199 seats deemed to be rural or semi- rural.
But by this year, just 17 of those seats were red, prompting fears that without an overhaul of rural policy, the party’s chances of gaining the keys to Number 10 in 2024 will be scuppered.
The report said: “It is a matter of simple electoral mathematics to say that if Labour is to have any chance of forming a government, it must win over the rural electorate.”
But for Mr Smith, who lives in the constituency of Scarborough and Whitby which has been a target for Labour in the past, that would be a very high mountain to climb.
“There are so many major issues here that are all very tangible and real and alive and that are shaping our futures,” the 57- year- old said.
“I’m trying to be broad- minded and objective. But out here, Labour just hasn’t got a voice. They don’t represent. They’ve tried – it’s almost as if they’re swimming against the tide.
“Unfortunately the way Labour set their stall out seems historically rooted in urban issues.”
The seat was highlighted as a potential target for Labour in the 2015 election, but Mr Smith describes the last Labour Cabinet as “out of touch” with the heavy political issues which are shaping countryside communities.
Robert Goodwill, the Conservative MP for the area, said in the General Election campaign last December that he had been surprised at the number of former Labour voters who had approached him in support.
“And I don’t get the impression it’s a one- off,” he said.
Mr Smith added: “There is a misconception, there is almost a ‘ town vs country’ perception divide – with rural areas tarnished with this brush that it’s all about fox hunting.
“The core of Whitby perhaps may well be left- leaning, but I suspect the outlying areas may not and that is where the vote is proving powerful.”
On a visit to Yorkshire earlier this summer, Labour’s new leader, Sir Keir Starmer, said he was committed to rural seats and would pay visits to the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors to garner opinion.
But the Countryside Alliance report released today found that this would be a significant task, as Labour had continually been blind to its “rural problem” despite persistent warnings from a left- leaning think tank, the Fabian Society, and an internal report produced as far back as five years ago.
Luke Raikes, the research director at the Fabian Society, said: “There’s got to be no no- go areas for Labour to get over the line in 2024. If you want to be a party of government, you have to be a party for the whole country.”
In analyses from the Fabian Society for the last three elections, the organisation said Labour was essentially ignoring the countryside vote and becoming more urban- focused.
And this is echoed in the new work from the Countryside Alliance, whose report added: “Much of the analysis of Labour’s defeat in 2019 has focused on the collapse of the ‘ Red Wall’, but not enough has been said about the fact that so many of the seats it lost were rural.”
Mr Raikes said: “I was looking at some polling from a couple of years ago that the Countryside Alliance did that showed
that a lot of people were very discontent with the Conservative government.
“I imagine that lots of people in rural communities are currently and obviously unhappy with the way things are being handled, and I think the problem is often largely on the Labour side, not actually even trying to engage with those people and their concerns.”
And the assumption had appeared to be that the rural electorate was, for example, stuck in its ways, despite research showing it votes for the party it believes best represents its interests and is less tribal in its political loyalties than many in the Labour Party believe.
“There’s so much more to the countryside than foxhunting and agriculture is more than tractors and tea rooms,” Mr Raikes added.
By last December’s general election, the Countryside Alliance said things had only worsened, with a doubling down on animal welfare becoming Labour’s core “rural” offering.
“The 50- point Animal Welfare Manifesto ( AWM) became symbolic of how Labour both approached rural policy and viewed those who live in the countryside, and how it confused animal welfare with animal rights,” the Countryside Alliance said.
But as the AWM aimed to change the behaviour and practices of those who live and work in the countryside, it represented a crude perception of rural communities, with a direct attack on rural pursuits including hunting and shooting, calling to ban hunting again and consult on a ban on grouse shooting.
Other policies called for restrictions on game farming, ending the badger cull, designed to tackle bovine tuberculosis in cattle, and expanding the definition of animal to include decapod crustaceans – intended to end the practice of boiling lobsters alive.
“The manifesto focused on ways to restrict what those in the countryside could do, be it professionally through their business practices, or recreationally through their leisure activities, ingraining the perception that the Labour Party does not understand or represent the countryside,” the Countryside Alliance’s report added.
And it concluded that by polling day in 2019, Labour had gone further than it had before in focusing on urban voters over rural ones, resulting in a further 15 rural seats being lost.
The Countryside Alliance said that even after the election, Labour continued to push antirural policies, such as using the Agriculture Bill, the most important piece of legislation for the farming community in 50 years, to attack shooting and hunting or stating that grouse are imported to be shot, when this is not the case.
Its report added: “Labour has always had policies that would benefit rural communities, and is perfectly capable of developing ideas which reflect the real needs and concerns of rural England and Wales, but it must also be prepared to promote them rather than continuing to focus on a divisive agenda.”
Issues such as better broadband connectivity, affordable housing, improved transport, sheep worrying, a ban on Chinese lanterns and digestible plastics dangerous for livestock and wild animals are far more persuasive policies, the alliance said.
“The continued obsession with hunting and country sports perpetuates a rural view that Labour rural policy is driven by class- driven ideology,” the report added.