Only one in seven think Labour care about the countryside, poll reveals
A new poll for the Countryside Alliance has found that just 15% of rural residents believe the Labour Party cares about people who live and work in the countryside, while 43% feel the Government has "waged war on the countryside." The findings come ahead of the launch of the Alliance's Campaign for the Countryside in Westminster, and follow the backlash over the family farm inheritance tax policy introduced under Sir Keir Starmer, which sparked mass protests before being partly reversed.
The ORB International survey also found that 28% of rural residents would be more likely to vote Labour if the party reset its relationship with the countryside. Labour peer Lord Blunkett, a mentor to new Prime Minister Andy Burnham, is urging the Government to abandon the proposed ban on trail hunting and to rebuild trust with rural communities, while Alliance chief executive Tim Bonner said the results should encourage ministers to drop policies that damage relations with rural voters. The campaign launch will also feature former Conservative prime minister Lord Cameron.
- Only 15% of rural residents think Labour cares about the countryside
- 43% believe the Government has "waged war" on rural areas
- Lord Blunkett urges dropping trail hunting ban to rebuild rural trust
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Rural voters have long been a source of friction for Labour, and this poll adds to that picture. It follows the row over inheritance tax changes affecting family farms, brought in after Sir Keir Starmer became Prime Minister, which led to large protests before ministers softened the policy. The Countryside Alliance, a lobby group representing rural interests including hunting and farming communities, commissioned the survey to coincide with a new campaign it is launching in Parliament.
The key figures involved include Tim Bonner, who leads the Countryside Alliance, and Lord Blunkett, a Labour peer and mentor to Andy Burnham, who succeeded Starmer as Prime Minister. Lord Cameron, a former Conservative prime minister, is also due to appear at the campaign launch, giving the event a cross-party dimension. A proposed ban on trail hunting is another point of contention between the Government and rural campaigners.
This matters because rural areas contain a significant number of parliamentary seats, and pollsters suggest goodwill towards Labour there is limited following recent policy disputes. The survey findings are being used to press the Government to reconsider its approach to rural communities ahead of future votes.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Advocates for rural communities argue that the inheritance tax changes on family farms and the proposed trail hunting ban reflect a government out of touch with countryside life, threatening livelihoods, land continuity and traditions built up over generations. They contend that policies drafted with urban priorities in mind can inflict disproportionate harm on farming families who are asset-rich but cash-poor, and that a ban on trail hunting disregards rural employment, heritage and ways of managing land that city-based policymakers may not fully understand. For them, the poll simply confirms what many in the countryside already feel: that their concerns are not being heard or weighed fairly against other political priorities.
The case against
Those sympathetic to the Government's position argue that reforming inheritance tax reliefs is a matter of fairness, aimed at closing a loophole that let very large estates avoid tax rather than targeting ordinary working farms, and that some adjustment was appropriate even if the initial design needed refining. They would note that a ban on trail hunting responds to long-standing and widely shared public concerns about animal welfare, and that a single poll commissioned by a campaigning organisation with a clear stake in the outcome should be read as advocacy rather than neutral evidence. On this view, governing well sometimes means taking unpopular but principled decisions, and rural opinion, while important, is one voice among many that ministers must balance nationally.