Cameron and Blunkett back Countryside Alliance’s Rural Reset campaign

Lord Cameron used the launch of the Countryside Alliance’s Campaign for the Countryside to call the proposed trail hunting ban “completely wrong” and to warn that further crackdowns on game shooting in England would erode rural pubs and services. The former Prime Minister spoke alongside Lord Blunkett, the former Labour Home Secretary, at the Westminster event on Monday 14 September, and the alliance published the speeches and new polling on Tuesday.

What did Lord Cameron say about shooting and hunting?

Lord Cameron told an audience drawn from farming, shooting, hunting, angling and racing that he “learned a lot of lessons as Prime Minister…one of them was never to forget the importance of rural Britain”. There was “no national security unless you have food security”, he said, and “stupid moves such as the family farm tax” put that at risk.

Turning to Defra’s call for evidence on gamebird release and game shooting, he warned that further restrictions risk eroding every facet of rural life, from pubs to local services, and urged rural Britain to recognise that a policy which damages one part of the countryside damages the whole. “Stand together, fight together and we’ll win together,” he said.

Blunkett: farm tax and hunting ban are mistakes

Lord Blunkett, whose Telegraph article on the eve of the launch had already urged the Prime Minister to set the trail hunting ban aside, told the event that “urban and rural are one and the same”. He described both the family farm tax and the proposed hunting ban as “mistakes”, and argued that Andy Burnham’s stated focus on “family, community and place” sits naturally with the campaign’s aims.

Opening the event, Lord Herbert of South Downs, chairman of the Countryside Alliance, said that “none of us should have to be here…but we’re here because the challenges and threats to the countryside have never been so great”. Politicians who “obsess” over restricting trail hunting, shooting and racing were “completely out of step with the public’s priorities”, he said, asking what people would think when they wanted a decent job, an affordable home and safe streets “and our politicians say, sorry, we’re just too busy re-running the ban on hunting or having a go at your flutter on the Grand National”.

Baroness Batters, the former National Farmers’ Union president, said food self-sufficiency was “plummeting” and that “the countryside doesn’t want to strike; it doesn’t want to protest. All it really wants is for the Prime Minister to succeed – to work with us, not against us”.

What does the polling show?

ORB interviewed 2,081 people across the UK on 9 and 10 September for the alliance. Just 15% of those living in rural communities agreed that the Labour Party cares about the people who live and work there. The alliance reads the same survey as an opening for the Government: 28% of rural residents said they would be more likely to vote Labour if the party reset its relationship with rural communities, a figure higher still in Wales and Scotland, and 24% of all voters said the same.

The alliance’s own analysis counts 27 harmful policies since 2024, among them the family farm tax, affordability checks on horse and greyhound racing, increases to firearms licensing fees and the plan to ban trail hunting.

What happens next?

The Countryside Alliance is asking supporters to sign up at ruralreset.org and use its e-lobby tool to send a message to the Prime Minister and their MP. Defra’s gamebird call for evidence remains open until 1 November, and the delayed trail hunting proposals have yet to be published; whether either moves is the campaign’s first test.