Complacency on rural vote ‘biggest risk’ to Tories

A Conservative campaigner and Sussex councillor has warned that complacency on the rural vote is one of the biggest risks for the party at the next general election.

Lizzie Hacking, who also chairs the Conservative Rural Forum, told a Countryside Alliance event at the party conference in Manchester that support was ebbing away in rural communities.

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“I got involved in politics in the 2010 general election, and at that point, David Cameron was so solidly aligned to rural interests,” she said.

“We used to send busloads through Vote-OK [a hunting lobby group] into London to campaign in some of our marginal seats.

“There was so much energy in rural communities and a solid alignment to the Conservative Party that we are no longer seeing.

“I stood in the local elections in the spring against the Green Party and my council ward is just farming. I had a 60% majority in 2019 and I very nearly got absolutely annihilated by the Greens.”

But NFU president Minette Batters told Farmers Weekly she was “relatively confident” the next election would be “competitive”, despite a “flat” mood at the conference.

She said Defra secretary Therese Coffey had performed well at the union’s fringe event.

“I actually felt and think with what she’s doing right now she is listening, she is engaging and she is trying to deliver, but with a very difficult regime she has inherited,” Mrs Batters said.

“She’s inherited a legacy that is difficult to sort out, and I think she’s shown her frustration in that today.”