A former Labour MP has criticised Labour’s “divisive” anti-rural politics, warning it must end the war on the countryside if it hopes to win the next election.
The warning comes today, as thousands of Brits head out to enjoy their local Boxing Day Hunt at 11am. With 200 meets in towns, villages and hamlets, Boxing Day Hunts provide a traditional way for communities to come together after Christmas and celebrate their love of the countryside. The traditions came in after the 2005 Fox Hunting ban, which replaced the blood sport opposed by many with a new form of ‘trail-hunting’, in which no animals are harmed but riders wear their iconic red coats and follow past traditions.
Despite many rural communities’ love of the annual event, Labour has conducted a long-running feud over hunting, which advocates argue has contributed to the Tories’ stranglehold over rural constituencies.
This morning, the Countryside Alliance’s Chief Executive, Tim Bonner, has called on Labour to “right the wrongs of the past” and end the party’s “running attack on rural communities”.
Despite pledging to distance himself from Jeremy Corbyn, Sir Keir Starmer has promised to re-open the issue of hunting, by bringing forward new laws to “strengthen” the Hunting Act.
Mr Bonner said that Labour’s long-running feud over hunting has led to rural voters failing to take the party seriously at elections, which could prove the difference between a hung parliament and a majority. He added: “Keir Starmer rightly talks about a future Labour government having respect for rural communities, but that needs to be more than just a catchphrase”.
“Rural communities need to see action and that means working with them to better the countryside, rather than attacking those who live and work in it.”
His warning was echoed by former Labour MP Kate Hoey, who despite representing the inner-London constituency of Vauxhall for 30 years was a keen defender of hunting.
Baroness Hoey told the Express that a renewed “war on the countryside” will only lose Sir Keir seats at the General Election.
She warned: “Labour needs rural seats to win a majority and needs to persuade rural voters that it has moved on from the divisive politics that saw it beaten so soundly in 2019. A war on the countryside, as past experience has shown, contributes to electoral defeat, not victory.”
The Countryside Alliance has declared it has assembled “an army” of supporters ready to battle a potential Labour Government against any new restrictions on hunting.
The volunteers have been assembled in a joint association with the British Hound Sports Association.
Mr Bonner said that his army will be willing “to fight the sort of battle that saw nearly a decade of huge demonstrations and Labour Ministers hounded in the countryside the last time it was in power”. However the group would “much rather the party abandoned once and for all its pledge to re-open the issue”.
The 2002 march against Tony Blair’s fox hunting ban saw 400,000 rural voters march on Westminster. In his autobiography, Mr Blair later reflected that the 2004 ban on fox hunting was “one of the domestic legislative measures I most regret”.
