by Liam Stokes
Labour’s ability to reach out to rural communities is about to be seriously tested, not in theoretical policy discussion but out in the real world.
I have often written that any journey to a future Labour majority has to pass through the country lanes of rural England and Wales. Too many of Labour’s target seats are designated to some degree as rural for there to be any alternative route. The cultural gulf that has opened up between our rural communities and the Labour Party simply must be bridged, and the only way to do that is with a serious policy offer.
Labour’s shadow Defra team were at pains to ensure the rural community who turned up to Conference that they were in “listening mode”, but unfortunately it isn’t as straightforward as simply pulling together a distinctive set of policies. Labour rural policy has become increasingly synonymous with animal rights, a cul-de-sac from which the party will need to extricate itself if it is to be given a fair hearing by rural voters. Labour has actually developed some really fine proposals for the countryside in the past, but the animal rights lobby is so noisy that these policies get drowned out by fixations on the badger cull or propping up the Hunting Act. These are issues that influence the votes of a minute number of people, and mustn’t be allowed to be the extent of the party’s rural offer.
A great test of Labour’s ability to dig itself out of its direct association with the animal rights movement has emerged in West Yorkshire. Ilkley Moor is the last remaining council-owned moor on which grouse shooting and all its associated management continues, and in early 2018 the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council will be voting on whether to renew the shooting lease that has been held by the Bingley Moor Partnership since 2008. The council has a Labour administration, and the decision as to whether or not to renew will be taken by the 49 members of the council’s Labour Group.
The fact at the heart of this debate is this: moorland only exists with management. Our beautiful, much-loved uplands are the result of centuries of human effort, working in concert with nature. Heather moorland cannot exist if left to its own devices, and we have both a national and international obligation to conserve it. So who should manage Ilkley Moor?