The pro-hunt group said the Conservative government had failed to address chronic deprivation and access to services in the countryside.
The pro-hunt lobby group, the Countryside Alliance, said that Conservatives have ‘taken for granted’ rural communities and has offered to help Labour to win more rural votes.
A joint report tomorrow by the pro-hunting lobby group, the Countryside Alliance, and the Fabian Society, the think tank with formal links to Labour, will discuss how Labour can ‘become a natural party of the countryside’.
Labour hold just 32 out of 199 rural seats – and the Conservatives led Labour by 57 per cent to 27 per cent in the most rural areas, a YouGov poll that was conducted as part of the research found.
A talk tomorrow launching the report will see Labour MPs Sue Hayman, David Drew and Lisa Nandy speak alongside the Countryside Alliance’s ‘head of shooting’ Liam Stokes.
The Countryside Alliance, which campaigns in favour of fox hunting and grouse shooting, said that Michael Gove had not tackled serious problems that affect rural voters such as chronic deprivation and access to services.
The report will argue that Labour should not to focus on animal welfare at the expense of other rural concerns: “the Labour Party has given the impression that rural issues can be reduced to animal welfare issues,” the report, will say.
“This is mistaken and has left a lasting impression among some in rural areas that the Labour Party does not understand them or, worse, is actively hostile to them.”
Liam Stokes of the Countryside Alliance told The Times:
“The countryside gets taken for granted when everyone thinks the countryside is going to vote Conservative regardless.”
“We are trying to furnish the Labour Party with some ideas that make them relevant in rural areas. If in doing that it leads to the Conservative Party taking countryside voters more seriously then [this report] will have done its job.”
“Hard pressed to name any policy that worked for them or benefited their community… It’s not a huge leap to see [that] if a concerted effort was made to reach out to those voters [by Labour] they could be in play.”
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