Posts Tagged ‘Countryside Alliance’

How can Labour win in rural seats?

08/10/2017, 11:21:35 PM

by Liam Stokes

This was the question that closed the Countryside Alliance fringe at Labour conference, a panel discussion entitled “How can Labour make Brexit work for the countryside?” based on our Brexit policy document. The question was asked by a frustrated party member from South West Norfolk CLP, a constituency currently represented by Liz Truss.

I happen to believe the answer to the question lies partially within the title of the fringe, which is precisely what I argued during my opening remarks as the first panellist to speak. At this point I think most people accept that the main barrier to Labour progress in rural areas is cultural, the perception and indeed the reality that until recently Labour has treated the countryside with a “polite disinterest”, to repeat the oft-quoted line from Maria Eagle’s report Labour’s Rural Problem.

I argued that Labour can help shed this image by showing some real passion for making Brexit work for the countryside. Everyone is talking about Brexit in great sweeping macro terms, yes or no to the Single Market, yes or no to Freedom of Movement, which is entirely understandable at this stage of the debate. But what the countryside needs to hear, and what I was hoping to hear at our own fringe and at the other rural fringes I attended, was an interest in the details that will matter to rural communities.

This doesn’t necessarily mean farming, but it does mostly mean farming. It’s true that most rural voters aren’t directly involved in agriculture, which only employs around half a million people, but again: Labour’s rural disconnect is cultural. Farming, and other land based industries like fishing and shooting, go right to the heart of rural culture. Land based industries shape the landscapes we look at, influence many of the social events going on in our towns and villages, and drive much of the conversation down the local pub. And I speak from painful experience when I say it is a little disheartening to wear the red rosette when the farmland bordering every road and railway line is festooned with “Vote Conservative” signs.

So putting effort into working for the land based industries could be electorally useful in the countryside, and as my fellow panellists Will Straw and Helen Goodman MP pointed out, it is also of immediate importance. Agriculture should be top of Labour’s policy agenda because farming is so uniquely exposed to Brexit.

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Labour needs a rural revival to win the seats needed for government

14/06/2017, 10:15:29 PM

by Liam Stokes

The general election has given hope to those of us hoping for a rural Labour revival, but also pause for thought. This is an area in which I have a personal interest. In this year’s Wiltshire Council elections I stood for Labour in the very rural north Wiltshire ward in which Jeremy Corbyn grew up. It was an uplifting experience. People were pleased and surprised to find a candidate roaming the country lanes wearing a red rosette. The most oft-heard quip was “best of luck mate, you’ll need it round here”. Others were more encouraging, which was much appreciated during long and lonely days leafletting. I’ll be eternally grateful to the landscaper who, as my spirits were flagging on a particularly long and rainy walk down an especially remote track, took a break from shovelling gravel to tell me he was glad to see someone “standing for the working man”. But for all that warmth on the doorstep, I got 10% of the vote. Believe it or not even that was 2% better than Labour did last time. The Tory got 69%.

I shouldn’t have been surprised; in the wake of the 2015 election it was painfully clear that Labour had a “rural problem”. Maria Eagle MP wrote a paper with that very title. There are 199 rural constituencies in England and Wales, of which Labour won 30. Earlier this year things got even worse with the loss of Copeland, taking us to 29.

A Fabian Society report produced in the immediate aftermath pointed to 148 constituencies Labour should target in the next general election in order to secure a majority. Maria Eagle’s report highlighted that 28 of these seats were in rural England and Wales, and fretted over the cultural disconnect that might mean we wouldn’t win them. Her report found that rural voters saw Labour as insular and metropolitan, while the party viewed the countryside with “polite indifference”.

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Why does the law become optional when it comes to hunting?

27/12/2012, 02:35:55 PM

by Ian Moss

The traditional Boxing Day argument about fox hunting started yesterday morning. It’s a great argument because it happens every year, on the same day, and that day just happens to be a day when not much else is happening.

For the booze sodden, housebound, tired and emotional journalist it is the Christmas present that keeps giving. Every year just before you knock off for Christmas you can ask the prime minister’s official spokesman, “are you going to repeal the hunting ban?”  The spokesman can say, “we have no plans to” and there you are – that’s your Boxing Day copy phoned in. It basically writes itself, with a quote from the League Against Cruel Sports, a quote from the Countryside Alliance, and it could probably be done by a fancy piece of sentence generating software knocking out 1000 words on the top line message of “people are in favour and people are against and here is a picture of a bloke on a horse”.

With fox hunting I always feel slightly disconnected from the debate, in that I don’t have the strong feelings against hunting that characterise people’s position in support of the ban. However, I am also convinced I don’t have any feelings at all in favour of hunting.

That’s where the cold, hard, rational logic kicks in for me. I can understand totally why people get very worked up against fox hunting. I don’t personally, but I can see why people do. What I can’t understand is why people get worked up in favour of hunting. Try as I might, once it has been pointed out that the pastime involves randomly picking on an animal to chase to have it ripped to death with dogs, I can’t see that as being something a decent person would get very involved in defending.

I have a relative by marriage that would never march for poverty, or unemployment, or war, but will march on London from Stoke on Trent to defend the right to kill foxes with dogs. That seems weird to me. Actually, all marching seems weird to me – I never quite saw the point of it and it was usually cold and often wet – but I digress. The thing is I find everything about hunting odd.

The clothes, the horns, the dogs, the killing all adds up to something I wouldn’t want to do. I even find the phrase, “ride with the hunt” rather curious. It infers some sort of passive activity that reveals a certain inner mania. “Well, I was all dressed up and sitting on my horse, trotting along and suddenly there was a hunt. So I thought, hey I’ll ride along with that”. Mainly I don’t think the phrase describes what is actually happening. It feels to me that you are not “riding with the hunt”, in fact you are part of the hunt.

I was in favour of the legislation when it came in, not an enthusiastic supporter but someone that saw it might be a reasonable thing to do.  I figured those with strong feelings against hunting had a point and so we should get on and ban it and then spend some energy on more difficult questions of the day. Hunting to me is one of those things that once it has been said “you can’t do this anymore” I look at it and think “OK, I understand, you are probably right”.

I think that is basically how other people should view it – it’s wrong, so if you did do it, stop now and move on to something else. Get another hobby. Take up paintballing or polo or, if you need the blood lust, ride round your house on a scooter killing spiders.  Even if you still like the dressing up and riding on a horse in a gang thing it is pretty easy not to break the law – just ride following a scent and lay off the fox-ripped-to-pieces section of the day.

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