Countryside Alliance urges Labour to ‘reset’ its relationship with rural voters

20 years after the Hunting Act came into force, amid a “growing breakdown of confidence”, the Countryside Alliance (CA) is pushing the Government to restore its relationship with the countryside.

The warning comes as rural campaign groups feel increasingly ignored following controversial changes to inheritance tax on family farms, as well as proposals to restrict access to shotguns.

Labour have also made a manifesto commitment to “ban trail hunting”. This move has prompted warnings that by focusing on issues that affect comparatively few, the government risks further fuelling tensions with rural voters.

A recent CA poll asked 2077 members of the public for the top three priorities they wanted the Government to address and only one of over 6000 responses mentioned hunting.  Respondents were then asked to rank the importance of ten current issues.

The NHS took the top spot with 83% of the vote, followed by controlling immigration (57%) and defence spending (32%). Trail hunting was voted least important.

Tim Bonner, the Countryside Alliance’s Chief Executive, said the Government should not waste hours more of parliamentary time re-opening the hunting issue. He said:

“It is wrong to for the Government to prioritise hunting, an issue which is irrelevant to the vast majority of the population, further souring its relationship with the rural community and losing the new Labour MPs it worked so hard to get elected in the countryside”.

“Ignoring the lessons of history is not wise and the new Labour government has already launched itself into a battle with the countryside over inheritance tax on farms and wants to restrict access to shotguns, a vital tool for farmers and rural workers.

“If the Government wants to avoid further fanning flames in the countryside, it would be wise to focus on prioritising issues that will actually help rural communities, rather than divide them.”

Executive Director of Communications & Public Affairs at BASC, Christopher Graffius told ST that the issue of the Governments relationship with rural voters was a highly complex one, but that the Government were not anti-shooting: “The Government has to understand that targeting firearms ownership without fixing the inefficiencies of the licencing system or ensuring that the system works efficiently, damages the re-election prospects of every rural labour MP.

“The Government should build on its positive statements backing sustainable shooting and grouse shooting and bring the Home Office to heel on firearms ownership.”