Cllr Ed Dungait attended our Rural Forum and has since written this opinion piece published in the Newcastle Journal and shared here with Ed’s permission.
SIR Keir Starmer had a chance to secure the rural vote for a generation, yet in just two years he utterly blew it. It is remarkable to think what an opportunity he had, yet squandered.
His taste of opportunity began in February 2023, when he appeared on stage in front of me and hundreds of farmers at the National Farmers’ Union Conference and gave an impressive pitch. He coveted our support and from many in the room he got it. On the day he outshone PM Rishi Sunak’s brief and rather unenticing video message. Some farmers left that conference intending to vote Labour for the first time of their lives.
Fifteen months later Labour went on to win an historic landslide victory, gaining around 100 rural seats, not least here in Northumberland which saw all four seats turning red, one for the first time ever. What an opportunity this could be for the party to cement itself in rural Britain for years to come, with a few sensible and supportive policies, you would think.
Rachel Reeves stood at the despatch box six months later and sent farming families across the nation into meltdown with a single sentence, stating that inheritance tax relief would be removed from farmland. In one sentence she wasted all of that potential the Labour Party had in rural Britain. Over a year of countrywide protests, meetings and negotiations seemed to fall on deaf ears until eventually, a partial U-turn was made.
How on earth it could take so long to accept they had got it wrong is baffling and shows a complete economic and political ineptitude. Listening to an interview with Reeves before the election my primary concern was that she simply didn’t have the nous for such an important job in government, and my fears were justified. As Madeline Grant of The Spectator put it neatly, “The Treasury had floated this idea to many Chancellors, but Reeves was the only one stupid enough to go ahead with it”.
In one astounding interview Starmer said that we can either fund the NHS or keep a tax break for farmers. What an absurd argument. The projected income from the Family Farm Tax would not have funded the NHS for a single day. Moreover, surveys consistently show that the most respected occupations in the opinion of voters are nurses at number one, followed by farmers at number two. Our own Prime Minister decided to face them off against each other in a desperate attempt to back up his own flawed policy. What awful leadership.
I still struggle to work out whether this whole debacle was carried out as a deliberate vindictive policy, or was simply due to complete ignorance of agricultural affairs.
Extra taxes on fertiliser, pick-ups, oil boilers and attempts to ban wood burning stoves can all be added to this.
Aside from farming, I’m afraid to say that the rural experience of this government hasn’t been much better.
The recent revaluation of hospitality venues for business rates affected towns and cities alike, but the Government failed to appreciate the devastating effect this could have on rural villages. In the countryside a pub is often the heart of a village, playing a vital role in the community.
It took another wave of protests and Labour MPs being banned from pubs until it finally sunk in. A 15% relief was at last offered but some pubs in Northumberland have had their rateable values more than double, putting their viability at risk.
The Government’s council funding review in February saw dramatic increases of funds going to metropolitan city councils, at the expense of rural councils like Northumberland. There could not be a much clearer display of how unimportant rural Britain is to Labour.
The A1 in Northumberland desperately needs dualling. It is essential for the safety of road users and the local economy. Before Starmer came to power the A1 dualling had been given formal development consent. Within months he scrapped the whole plan. Funding is still being provided for many urban-based transport projects, but it seems rural Northumberland is at the bottom of the list.
I commend local representatives of all parties who have spoken strongly on the topic, and I hope cross-party consensus can make progress here. That will rely on a sensible government changing tack and listening to us though.
And finally, when the Labour party runs out of ideas, they will always revert back to countryside culture wars. Starmer’s government planned to restrict game shooting seasons in a pointless manner that would do nothing to help conservation, and to ban trail hunting which would not benefit wildlife whatsoever.
They even said these policies were some of their priorities in government. This is a desperate attempt to hold on to a tiny proportion of urban voters but will further alienate huge swathes of rural people.
In 2015 Labour MP Maria Eagle published her report on “Labour’s Rural Problem” highlighting exactly that. She stressed that an obsession with these culture wars distracted the party from the real issues facing the rural economy. Just 11 years later her sister Angela was Minister for Rural Affairs in Starmer’s government, yet the party still does not seem to have heeded Maria’s advice at all.
Of all the issues facing this country, it is bizarre to think these culture wars can still be a part of their plans.
In just two years Keir Starmer achieved all this. He used his 100 rural MPs to back up his government, then threw them under the bus with terrible policies. It is no surprise he lost all support.
Andy Burnham now has the opportunity to change tack on all of this.
Will he finally start legislating for us, not against us?
Will his offer of ‘hope in every heart’ extend to rural Britain?
If it does, he may still have a chance to offer those rural MPs a fraction of a hope of re-election.
