This piece was originally published in the Telegraph on 4 June.
On the one hand it is not rocket science to suggest that the Labour Government has “let down” farmers and the countryside, on the other it is a brave admission from someone who was a central part of that government until a few weeks ago and who harbours ambitions to be the next Prime Minister.
Wes Streeting, until recently the health secretary, started a “road trip to people and places that have been lost to Labour since the 2024 General Election” with a visit to farmers in Hexham to find out how to bring them back to Labour. His conclusion that “we need the Government to understand rural England” is not wrong, but it is completely meaningless unless he and his ex-colleagues around the Cabinet table remember how they came to win in the countryside at the last election and then admit what they have done wrong since.
In the wake of Labour’s 2019 election debacle the Countryside Alliance produced two reports, “Labour Countryside” with the Fabians think tank and “The Elephant in the Countryside”. These papers plotted a route back to rural relevance for Labour through a focus on the priorities of the countryside, rather than simply rehearsing the views of urban voters about rural issues.
The party took those reports seriously and by 2024 had distanced itself from the policies of Jeremy Corbyn who had sought to use the countryside as a playground for Marxist politics. Its manifesto made no commitment to a “right to roam” to signal its distaste for even the concept of private property. There was no attack on grouse shooting as a substitute for putting aristocrats and kulaks up against a wall. Even Labour’s traditional sops to the animal-rights movement were half-hearted.
Yet almost as soon as it came to power ministers seemed to forget every lesson of the past. Firstly, just a few months into government the Treasury introduced the disastrous family farm tax which would have raised a pittance but cost an incalculable amount of political capital. In opposition Labour had specifically committed not to remove inheritance tax relief on agricultural property and the sense of betrayal in the countryside has not been removed by the subsequent partial U-turn.
Secondly, it piled costs on to rural businesses through National Insurance, business rates and energy costs. Pubs and small businesses at the heart of rural communities have had to close as a result. Thirdly it has reverted to culture war in the countryside with the obsessive pursuit of trail hunting and threats to restrict shotgun ownership and game shooting. When ministers prioritised hunting legislation they all but admitted that the Government did not have a serious agenda for rural communities.
Of course, there have been many other missteps, but the rapid fracturing of the Government’s relationship with the countryside is symptomatic of its wider travails. Ill-thought-out policy implemented with haste, only to be met with widespread opposition which generated a partial U-turn, but only after the political damage had been done. Then a retreat to activist-inspired culture-war politics in the absence of any serious agenda.
Whatever conclusions the Labour Party comes to in the coming weeks and months and whoever is in Number 10 – whether Keir Starmer or one of those jockeying to replace him – Streeting is right that their approach to the countryside must change fundamentally if they are to have any chance of rebuilding a semblance of trust. Whatever its problems, Labour still has well over 100 MPs in rural constituencies who will already be looking towards the next general election with trepidation. Yet neither Labour, nor any other party, can achieve a majority without significant support in the countryside.
Trust can be regained, polls can turn, but not if you keep making the same mistakes. Whoever is in charge of the Labour Party when the music stops needs to deliver the change that was promised in 2024. A change from the arrogant assumption that government knows what is best for the countryside. A change from the absence of any real representation for – or understanding of – rural communities across government and Whitehall.
A change from the ludicrous agenda that puts culture war politics and attacks on trail hunting, game shooting, gun ownership and any other bandwagon activists jump on ahead of practical policies to support farming and rural communities. Yes, we need the Government to understand rural England, but the question is does Streeting or any of the other contenders for the crown?