Starmer and the farmers: Labour rediscovers its rural problem

Labour traditionally has had few rural MPs, with rural England overwhelmingly Conservative but for a sprinkling (now rather more) of Liberal Democrat MPs. 

The Blair government’s ban on foxhunting (the last time the government had to resort to the Parliament Act to face down Lords opposition) was seen as emblematic of out of touch Islingtonians trying to inflict their leftie sensitivities to curtail century long rural rites. Compound that alienation with the mishandling of the 2001 foot and mouth (FMD) outbreak, where the rural economy was collateral damage to the need to “shut down the countryside” to control disease spread after it got out of hand, and Tony Blair’s New Labour government recognised it had a rural problem. Nearly 15 years later, and it is now the turn of prime minister Keir Starmer to face the same headache. 

New Labour took a cautious – and institutional approach – to rural affairs 

After that tricky first term, the New Labour government rethought its approach. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, which was seen to be in the pocket of farmers and blamed for the sluggish response to FMD, was replaced by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs – with a remit to show that the government understood there was more to the rural economy than farming.

The government’s “modernising rural delivery” reforms also saw it create a new quango – the Commission on Rural Communities (CRC) – with a remit to speak up for rural interests in Whitehall (its head was called the Rural Advocate) and ensure that policies were adequately “rural proofed", though it is not clear it made much difference in practice. 

At the same time the Blair government made sure to tread very carefully wherever rural interests were at stake. Throughout the 2000s, the Treasury harboured a desire for farmers to contribute to the costs of responding to animal disease outbreaks (the Common Agricultural Policy meant it could not get its mitts on the single farm payment – it would take Brexit to give it that option). Defra’s spending plans assumed that it would introduce something called “cost and responsibility sharing” – but No.10 was vigilant in ensuring another battle front with farmers was not opened up. 

The Conservative government also faced problems with farmers

The CRC was an early casualty of the 2010 bonfire of the quangos – incoming Conservative ministers did not feel the need to employ an advocate for rural communities when many of their number represented their rural constituents, came from farming backgrounds, were big landowners, or all three. The language of “rural proofing” was ditched. And although the Conservatives did embark on post-Brexit reforms of agricultural support, they were constrained by manifesto commitments to maintain funding levels (it was left to devolved governments to raid farm budgets to cover funding gaps elsewhere). 

But it was not all plain sailing for the Conservatives, with the last government dealing with problems over planning reforms, farmers frustrated by a Brexit deal which left them facing barriers into the Single Market, and EU exporters still yet to confront the full panoply of checks at the GB border. Even George Eustice, the Conservative agriculture secretary, expressed his extreme dissatisfaction with the trade deals that the Johnson government signed with Australia and New Zealand. 

Labour must be sensitive to all rural voters – not just farmers

That left a gap that Keir Starmer seemed to want to fill. He went and charmed the farmers at the NFU conference – when his Conservative counterpart sent a video message. He pledged to protect farmers in future trade deals. But he also claimed he would protect the family farm. That is why farmers in general (and the NFU leadership in particular) now feel let down. Combine that with the general public dislike, even fear, of inheritance tax and the recent (at least partially avoidance driven) turbocharging of agricultural land prices, and it is perhaps not surprising that farmers have not taken the change to the IHT rules lying down. It is not clear the government is making things any better by trumpeting its record investment in farming – which would only be a record because of big recent underspends by Defra meaning farmers have not claimed all the money allocated to farm support. 

Within a few months of the general election, Labour has remobilised a lot of the countryside. The immediate challenge for Starmer, Rachel Reeves and Steve Reed is to work out whether to stick with their IHT changes. But the underlying problem is that the current model of farming looks broken, with Reed announcing the intention to develop a farmer-led 25-year roadmap designed to make farming more productive and more profitable. 

Having sunk relations to a new low, the government faces a big challenge in recovering its relationship with the farming sector. But Labour will also need to make sure that it does not lose rural England as well. The government will need to show that it is sensitive to the concerns of everyone who lives outside urban areas, most of whom are not farmers.