Tim Bonner: A new era begins

Following the general election which saw Labour claim a landslide victory, Tim Bonner reflects on what might be ahead for the countryside and rural issues in this article from My Countryside magazine.

The general election of 2024 will be remembered for Labour’s historic majority and the collapse of the Conservative government that had won its own landslide just five years before. What is yet to be decided is whether this will mark a period of stable government, or whether it is just another example of our ever more volatile politics. 

The election result suggests that the decisions that Keir Starmer and his government make in the next few years will decide which course history will take and that his approach on rural issues and the vexed topic of hunting will play a significant part. This may sound strange when Labour was returned with the largest majority in modern political history, but Keir Starmer achieved that with a significantly lower share of the vote than Tony Blair achieved in 1997 and less than Jeremy Corbyn’s share of the vote in Labour’s 2017 defeat. The new government will know very well that this means that a two- or three-term Labour government cannot be taken for granted, especially if it abandons the middle ground of British politics where it won such a famous victory. 

The countryside and rural issues might seem of little importance to this electoral mathematics, but they could be crucial because of what they will tell the country about where Labour intends to govern from. Whilst a relatively small proportion of the population lives and works in rural areas, nearly everyone in Britain sees the countryside as a national treasure. Add to that the fact that the most controversial issues in rural politics are all intertwined with the politics of class and culture and you have a potentially toxic political mixture. Labour spent years in the run up to the general election neutralising rural issues because they understood that farmers and the wider rural community are important not just because of their votes, but also because they are perceived to be the backbone of the countryside, and therefore of the country as a whole. 

That is why in the run up to the election, Keir Starmer’s Labour did everything it could to make it clear that it was not the party of Jeremy Corbyn seeking to use the countryside as a playground for Marxist politics. There was 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 up against a wall. Even Labour’s traditional sops to the animal rights movement were half-hearted. It said the badger cull will end, but only after bovine TB has been eliminated. Then, of course, there is hunting. There was a commitment to ban trail hunting because, Labour says, trail hunting is a loophole that allows the hunting of foxes to continue. Whether the limited evidence justifies such a commitment is questionable, but a specific pledge to address perceived illegality is not the all-out attack on hunting that anti-hunting organisations wanted. The subsequent meltdown at the League Against Cruel Sports shows exactly how disappointed they are. 

Of course, winning elections is one thing, but governing is another entirely. The extraordinary and unprecedented election result means that, for at least this parliament, the politics of Westminster will not operate as we have known it for the last 20 years. On many issues both government and the main opposition will come from the Labour party. We know there will be constant pressure on environmental and animal rights issues from the left of the Labour party and there will be a regular temptation for ministers to give in to the simplistic arguments of radicals and the activist base. On hunting, game shooting, wildlife management, firearms licensing and right to roam to name just a few, there will be a siren of voices calling on the new government to follow Labour’s basest instincts. 

The Alliance will be ever vigilant to protect our way of life and remind the new government that the choices it makes are not just about the votes of the rural community, but about how it is perceived. Labour has a choice in government. It can learn from the admitted mistakes of the past, deliver its oft repeated commitment to respect rural communities and hold the middle ground of British politics. Alternatively, it can revert to the sort of divisive and pointless culture wars promoted by the left. We know what worked for Labour in this general election and failed so dramatically in 2019. The question now is whether the new government will remember that lesson in the heat of the battles to come.