Decades of meddling have pushed rural communities to breaking point. It’s time Labour listened to the countryside, argues Aaron Newbury.
Farmers Protest In London (Image: Getty)
Growing up, I was fortunate enough to be raised in the English countryside. Surrounded by farmers, rural businesses and more showed me first-hand the difficulties faced by these proud communities.
It also revealed to me very early in life that some elements of our political class – the clipboard-worrying Labourites – lack any care for rural England. Indeed I would go so far as to suggest they actively dislike those swathes of the country which produce our food, and to where many of us seek to escape the clutches of big cities as soon as possible.
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One of my earliest ‘political memories’ was a sign, tied with a baling cord, to a tree at the entrance to the village. It was objecting to Tony Blair’s obsessive hatred of the sport of fox hunting.
Perhaps of greater interest was it had been put up by someone who had never been fox hunting, and had never wished to. Their objection was not out of love for the sport, but rather out of a dislike of a perceived ‘class war’ from a Labour Party obsessed with meddling in areas they had never cared about.
To this day, the sign is still there.
Fast forward more than 20 years, and the signs of Labour’s disinterest in rural England have never been more obvious. For decades Britain’s villages have been hollowed out: the closure of cottage hospitals, the boarding up of the village shop and post office (I could go on).
So it was no wonder to me this week when the big guns came out. At an event organised by the Countryside Alliance rural groups came together, groups from across the country, desperate to make their voices heard.
Whether it was the Family Farm Tax, or calls to ban trail hunting, or the hiking of business rates and more, rural England is finally saying – ‘enough’. In the minds of Labour politicians, rural England and those who inhabit it represent a caricature of everything they dislike.
Labour MPs cannot see past their own blinkers and observe what the countryside truly is. It is not a place of the rich and the toffs, rampaging about the green rolling hills with abandon. Rather it is a place filled with the rural working class (who Labour once professed to care about) and those who act as stewards of a shared inheritance – our natural world.
Yet these days Labour seems to have either forgotten about it, or turned it into a focus of their class-war politics and hatred for tradition, history, and self-sufficiency. For all their focus on ‘good growth in every postcode’, Labour has forgotten one in every four of them are rural.
Countryside campaigners do not want much. They simply wish to have things go back to before obsessive meddling eroded their way of life, meddling by metropolitan officials and busybodies with no understanding of the impact of their actions.
Chiefest of these examples is perhaps the call to ban trail hunting. After Tony Blair dedicated hundreds of hours to banning fox hunting, his government then ordered people to commence trail hunting instead. Now that too must be outlawed.
Try making sense of that one.
Campaigners are right to demand a rural reset – but sadly I fear this Government is too far gone. The ideology governing them, that of ruinous socialism, needs a foe to justify its pigheaded ignorance of the facts of life.
Rural England makes for a good foe. But it is time people made their voices heard. Rural communities feed the country, the landscape is our nation’s lungs and its people are custodians of it, Andy Burnham, and the rest of his socialist mob, would do well to listen.
Labour nudges ahead of Reform for the first time in a year as new poll puts Burnham-led party on 27%.TA
More in Common have published new polling asking voters how they would vote if a general election were held tomorrow, with Andy Burnham as Labour leader instead of the outgoing Keir Starmer. The results put Labour ahead of Reform for the first time in over a year.
The numbers
With Burnham as leader, Labour rises six percentage points to 27%. Reform drops to 26%. The Conservatives sit at 23%, with the Liberal Democrats on 10% and the Greens on 8%.
It is a modest lead, and one that should be treated with caution given the volatility of the current moment – Burnham has not yet been formally confirmed as leader, and a leadership contest with other candidates could change the picture. But the direction of travel is significant. Labour has been stuck below 22% for months. A six-point uplift – enough to clear Reform – is not nothing.
The head-to-head figures are even more striking. On the question of preferred prime minister, Burnham beats Farage 62% to 38%. For comparison, Starmer beats Farage on the same question by only 53% to 47%. And when asked to choose between Burnham and Starmer directly, voters prefer Burnham by 67% to 33%.
What Luke Tryl said
Luke Tryl, director of More in Common UK – the same pollster who called Makerfield Reform’s worst night since the general election – shared the findings on social media, noting that the Burnham bounce is coming from a specific set of voters.
“Looking at voter flows, Labour under Andy Burnham particularly gain from undecided voters, Lib Dems and the Greens,” he wrote. “He also changes the outcome of the ‘preferred PM’ question, moving one point ahead of Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch. The picture is even more stark on head to heads between potential PM candidates. Burnham bests Starmer 67% to 33%. Although Starmer beats Farage 53-47, Andy Burnham beats him by a significant margin of 62-38.”
The pattern in those voter flows is worth dwelling on. Burnham is not primarily winning voters from Reform – he is winning them from the centre and left, from undecided voters and from people who were drifting to the Lib Dems and Greens. That is a different kind of coalition from the one Reform would need to beat him – and it mirrors what happened in Makerfield, where Burnham secured 54% and the Conservatives, Lib Dems and Greens collectively won just 3%. Voters who might otherwise have split their support parked it with Burnham as the candidate most capable of keeping Reform out.
What it means for Farage
For Reform, the polling adds to a deeply uncomfortable week. Tryl’s post-Makerfield analysis described it as the party’s worst byelection night since the general election, with barely any vote share increase in a seat that had been one of their best second-place finishes in 2024. Internal Reform figures are calling for Zia Yusuf’s removal and warning of “serious splits about to break out.” And Farage himself has spent the week being grilled about his £5m gift across three separate broadcasters without providing a consistent explanation.
The polling does not mean Reform are finished. They are still on 26%, they have significant local government representation, and the contest for the right of British politics is far from settled. But the Conservatives winning Aberdeen South and closing the gap in the polls suggests the squeeze on Reform from the right is real too. Restore Britain taking 7% in Makerfield added another complication. The space Reform occupies is no longer as clear as it was twelve months ago.
The leadership race
Streeting’s endorsement has all but locked down the leadership race, with nominations opening on 9 July and a new leader required by 1 September. Al Cairns, the recently resigned defence minister, is reportedly considering entering the contest, but faces the steep task of reaching 81 MP nominations while Burnham already has more than 200.
If Burnham does become leader – and the arithmetic makes it very difficult to see how he doesn’t – Tuesday’s polling suggests the general election conversation is going to look very different from what it did even two weeks ago. A Labour Party competitive with Reform, a Conservative Party showing signs of life, and a Reform party with a fragmented right flank and a leader under formal parliamentary investigation is a meaningfully different landscape from the one that existed when Starmer was clinging on.
Earlier polling from More in Common had shown Labour overtaking Reform by eight points under Burnham. Tuesday’s figures are slightly more modest – one point – but they come after a week of real political activity, not a hypothetical. Burnham won a byelection. Starmer resigned. The leadership contest is underway. And Labour, for the first time in over a year, is back in the lead.
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A week ago Andy Burnham was not an MP. Now he is the near-certain next Labour leader and prime minister, and the polling is already reflecting what his supporters have been arguing for months: that he can do something Keir Starmer has not been able to do. He can beat Nigel Farage.
More in Common have published new polling asking voters how they would vote if a general election were held tomorrow, with Andy Burnham as Labour leader instead of the outgoing Keir Starmer. The results put Labour ahead of Reform for the first time in over a year.
The numbers
With Burnham as leader, Labour rises six percentage points to 27%. Reform drops to 26%. The Conservatives sit at 23%, with the Liberal Democrats on 10% and the Greens on 8%.
It is a modest lead, and one that should be treated with caution given the volatility of the current moment – Burnham has not yet been formally confirmed as leader, and a leadership contest with other candidates could change the picture. But the direction of travel is significant. Labour has been stuck below 22% for months. A six-point uplift – enough to clear Reform – is not nothing.
The head-to-head figures are even more striking. On the question of preferred prime minister, Burnham beats Farage 62% to 38%. For comparison, Starmer beats Farage on the same question by only 53% to 47%. And when asked to choose between Burnham and Starmer directly, voters prefer Burnham by 67% to 33%.
What Luke Tryl said
Luke Tryl, director of More in Common UK – the same pollster who called Makerfield Reform’s worst night since the general election – shared the findings on social media, noting that the Burnham bounce is coming from a specific set of voters.
“Looking at voter flows, Labour under Andy Burnham particularly gain from undecided voters, Lib Dems and the Greens,” he wrote. “He also changes the outcome of the ‘preferred PM’ question, moving one point ahead of Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch. The picture is even more stark on head to heads between potential PM candidates. Burnham bests Starmer 67% to 33%. Although Starmer beats Farage 53-47, Andy Burnham beats him by a significant margin of 62-38.”
The pattern in those voter flows is worth dwelling on. Burnham is not primarily winning voters from Reform – he is winning them from the centre and left, from undecided voters and from people who were drifting to the Lib Dems and Greens. That is a different kind of coalition from the one Reform would need to beat him – and it mirrors what happened in Makerfield, where Burnham secured 54% and the Conservatives, Lib Dems and Greens collectively won just 3%. Voters who might otherwise have split their support parked it with Burnham as the candidate most capable of keeping Reform out.
What it means for Farage
For Reform, the polling adds to a deeply uncomfortable week. Tryl’s post-Makerfield analysis described it as the party’s worst byelection night since the general election, with barely any vote share increase in a seat that had been one of their best second-place finishes in 2024. Internal Reform figures are calling for Zia Yusuf’s removal and warning of “serious splits about to break out.” And Farage himself has spent the week being grilled about his £5m gift across three separate broadcasters without providing a consistent explanation.
The polling does not mean Reform are finished. They are still on 26%, they have significant local government representation, and the contest for the right of British politics is far from settled. But the Conservatives winning Aberdeen South and closing the gap in the polls suggests the squeeze on Reform from the right is real too. Restore Britain taking 7% in Makerfield added another complication. The space Reform occupies is no longer as clear as it was twelve months ago.
The leadership race
Streeting’s endorsement has all but locked down the leadership race, with nominations opening on 9 July and a new leader required by 1 September. Al Cairns, the recently resigned defence minister, is reportedly considering entering the contest, but faces the steep task of reaching 81 MP nominations while Burnham already has more than 200.
If Burnham does become leader – and the arithmetic makes it very difficult to see how he doesn’t – Tuesday’s polling suggests the general election conversation is going to look very different from what it did even two weeks ago. A Labour Party competitive with Reform, a Conservative Party showing signs of life, and a Reform party with a fragmented right flank and a leader under formal parliamentary investigation is a meaningfully different landscape from the one that existed when Starmer was clinging on.
Earlier polling from More in Common had shown Labour overtaking Reform by eight points under Burnham. Tuesday’s figures are slightly more modest – one point – but they come after a week of real political activity, not a hypothetical. Burnham won a byelection. Starmer resigned. The leadership contest is underway. And Labour, for the first time in over a year, is back in the lead.