Labour in the countryside.
| Author | Elliott, Cathy |
| Position | EDITORIAL |
Despite a difficult few months for Labour, we are seeing some green shoots of hope where we might not have expected them. The Batley and Spen by-election was a narrow hold, but what was particular intriguing was that the party appears to have attracted a new sort of voter from the more rural or semi-rural parts of the constituency in the Spen Valley, including the villages around Cleckheaton and Heckmondwike. Meanwhile, whilst it is never ideal to lose your deposit, it was also welcome and interesting to see the Tories lose what everyone thought was a safe seat in Chesham and Amersham to the Liberal Democrats -without a doubt partly because of tactical voting. Some of the issues raised on the doorstep included HS2 and planning reform: both of which matter to local people in part because of destruction of the greenbelt and other natural habitats and areas of beauty.
After a terrible year in which the natural world on our doorsteps has been a great consolation to many, there are reasons both principled and electoral why Labour should care about the countryside. This is clearly a point that the leadership already accepts: Keir Starmer's speech to the National Farmers Union in February - the first Labour leader to address them in thirteen years - received a cautiously warm welcome from farmers whose livelihoods are increasingly vulnerable because of Brexit, but also because of long-term trends that make it increasingly difficult to make a profit from food production. It also heralded the start of a wide-ranging review into rural and farming policies by the Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Luke Pollard MP. He outlines his initial thoughts and priorities in this issue. His renewed focus on listening to farmers and rural people, on supporting rural communities and economies, and on reducing carbon, and food miles, and halting the downward pressure on animal welfare and nature-friendly farming standards is extremely welcome.
It is important to note, though, that being serious about rural policy and the concerns of rural voters in no way entails abandoning the values that Labour has always held dear, or what matters in urban areas or to urban voters. Gareth Southgate's vision of England as a self-confident place in which football players have the courage to kneel against racism has been compelling this summer partly because it is relevant to the whole of the country (although people in the devolved nations may choose different sportspeople to support). Kneeling alongside Londoners and Mancunians like Raheem Sterling and Marcus Rashford has been Kieran Trippier, who went to my old school in semi-rural Northern England. Culture warriors may be entranced by a vision of the rural that is white, socially conservative, affluent and somehow emotionally and culturally separate from our great cities. However, the emotions conjured by the summer's football hint that this simplistic dualism cannot withstand inspection of the deep interconnections between rural and urban that exist on this small island nor its links with the wider world. The...
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