War on the Countryside: British Public Thinks Govt ‘Unfairly’ Prioritises Urban Over Rural

A considerable majority of Britons believe the UK’s Labour Government “unfairly neglects those living in the countryside” and prioritises urban over rural issues, polling states.

Following accusations that the British government is declaring war on the countryside to further anti-rural class war goals of urban elites, a considerable majority of the British people seem to agree with the essential facts. According to a survey by British Polling Council member ORB for campaign group The Countryside Alliance, a massive three-quarters of Britons at 76 per cent think the government “prioritises urban issues over rural issues”.

There is a real perception of a fairness failure in the statistics, with two-thirds at 65 per cent saying they agree “the Labour government unfairly neglects those living in the countryside”, and 64 per cent that the Labour government “does not care about people who live in the countryside “.

The UK government has rolled out a raft of anti-countryside policies over the past year, including several that could have been designed to — or at least will have the impact of — destroying farms by making them uneconomical. Among them was a now rowed-back death tax grab that would see many small family farms broken up and sold off when the present generation of farmers should die and be left unable to leave them intact to their heirs, a measure defeated after months of protest and negative headlines.

Another, the hiking of animal welfare standards, would alone not be a cause for concern except it comes at the same time meat imports into Britain soar, with no import controls to ensure foreign producers have to meet the same standards planned, leaving British farmers simply unable to compete. A similar process of flooding the UK market with cheaper to produce meat in the 19th century caused a long and deep rural depression in Britain that depopulated the countryside for a century.

But even among these economic measures undermining the British countryside, the heavily urban-focussed Labour government is launching cultural attacks on the countryside too, with the same animal welfare bill coming after the traditional vestiges of the already banned sport of foxhunting. Rural communities still go through the centuries-old motions of the hunt without actually pursuing quarry given — as the Countryside Alliance notes — the tradition forms “part of the social fabric of rural Britain”. Yet this too is to be stamped out.

Alliance chairman Tim Bonner said of these developments and the new polling:

When Keir Starmer said that he ‘wanted a new relationship with the countryside’ we all assumed he meant a better one, but in 18 months his government has alienated rural people and created the clear impression that it does not care about the countryside.

Its warped priorities have put taxing family farms, raising rates for rural businesses and banning trail hunting above policies that would benefit rural people.

While the partial changes to the family farm tax are a step in the right direction, the government must desperately learn the fundamental lesson of this policy debacle, which is that it needs to work with the rural community – not legislate against it. The government has a very long way to go to rebuild trust.

 

Other critics approach the war on the countryside launched by human rights lawyer turned politician Sir Keir Starmer in more stark terms. As previously reported:

Brexit leader Nigel Farage replied, “Labour are authoritarian control freaks,” and Welsh Conservative Andrew RT Davies said the proposed rules are a “spiteful attack on rural communities by urban elites”.

The Abergavenny Chronicle reports Davies said the fact Labour were moving fast on trail hunting — which is not real hunting — while the government seemed disinterested in tackling the illegal and damaging sport of hare coursing shows “the real motive behind this ban. It’s not animal welfare. It’s a spiteful attack on the rural way of life.”

Davies said: “This policy is being imposed by urban elites who neither understand nor care for the countryside”.

Coming after the vestigial traditions of the countryside, even though there was a single sentence about it in the Labour Party election manifesto (platform) last year, certainly does not appear to be a priority for the country. ORB noted of their polling, which was slightly larger than a typical UK polling intention survey at 2,000 people, when asked not a single respondent said banning trail hunting should be a priority for the government.

Instead over a third said the economy, followed by 17 per cent who said border control, and 15 per cent who said healthcare.