COUNTRYSIDE: The lovely parish church bell tolls for thee
Tories should listen most carefully to the countryside marchers
It was the electoral ineptness of the Conservatives and the certainty of at least 10 years of Labour rule which necessitated the mutation of the savagely conservative British Field Sports Society into the cuddly new Labour Countryside Alliance in 1997. The experiment has been an enormous success, not least for the achievement of keeping hunting going through the first new Labour term, but the pinnacle of the Alliance's campaign came on 22nd September when 407,791 people gathered under the banner of Liberty and Livelihood to remind the urban government that the rural masses are on the verge of revolting if hunting remains as the only rural issue on the parliamentary agenda. Those who claim that the march will have no effect or that it had a confused message, as a flustered Alun Michael did repeatedly on that Sunday, are missing, deliberately or otherwise, the point. The real message of a peaceful demonstration of over 400,000 people as orchestrated by the smooth left wingers who run the Alliance is — if this many protest within the law how many will protest without it? And, while the Alliance strategy has long been one of engagement with government, Chairman John Jackson was quick to put the boot in by making it clear that the countryside would ‘erupt in anger’ if the protest was ignored.
The media, from The Sun to The Guardian via the Sunday Mirror, have with almost one voice taken the Alliance line and questioned the government’s rural priorities. Polls show that there is no majority of public opinion for a ban. The battle to save hunting might well be won. The Queen’s Speech and Alun Michael's legislation are awaited but the language of retreat abounds in government and with the Alliance ready to consider reasonable compromise, in the form of some sort of licensed hunting, Mr Blair's natural instincts are drawing him towards the aptly named Middle Way proposals.
Many hunting hardliners still consider that for all the kind words and compliments — Tony Blair wrote ‘the march, the numbers involved, and the way those who took part behaved, was certainly a credit to your organisation’ in a letter to John Jackson — the government will end up doing the dirty and shafting fox hunting with a bill that could be amended by the rabid hoards on Labour’s backbenches to create a total ban. In fact there is a body of naive Tory hunting types who will be sorely disappointed if the engagement strategy of the current Alliance leadership is successful. They wait in the wings ready to implement an aggressive campaign of public disorder and in doing so lend strength to the arguments of those they so despise. The message to Blair is clear: deal with the leadership you know and which speaks your language or let loose the dogs of war whose campaign may be doomed but which will certainly cause huge embarrassment and complication. The spectre of the fuel protest still hangs heavy over New Labour and their pollsters.
And what of the Tory party in all this? Despite the fact that the entire parliamentary party, with the exception of a few disgraceful individuals, support hunting and over 100 Tory MPs joined the march, Conservative support is almost an embarrassment to the Alliance in its present government loving mode. IDS's announcement that a future Conservative government would repeal a ban on hunting would have been met with whoops and hollers five years ago but such is the state of the party that most now consider that compromising on a Middle Way Bill is more realistic than fighting a rearguard action for long enough for the Conservative cavalry to come riding over the hill. Worse still, the comparison between the success of the Alliance with its limited funds and small staff and the Conservative party with big budgets, big staff and big egos is deeply unflattering to CCO. The Alliance manages to motivate massive grassroots support of the kind that the Tory party can only dream of and can put more people on the streets than the Conservatives have members.
According to MORI 84% of the marchers were Conservative voters and amongst the volunteers who run the Alliance on the ground that figure is probably even higher. These are the people the Conservatives need if they are ever again to run an effective national election campaign but they like the rest of the countryside are just as disillusioned with the Tories as they are with most other politicians. They cannot relate to suburban Conservative MPs and the party's constant obsession with race, gender and sexuality when they see huge problems in the countryside and no-one with the nerve to address them.
The Conservative party could learn a lot from the Countryside Alliance about changing image without compromising core principles, about running a tight organisation with real responsibility in the hands of regional staff and volunteers, and about motivating activists through communication and local campaigns. But don't be surprised if it doesn’t.
Oscar, an ex-farmer, writes The Last Ditch, ERO’s rural affairs column
The Last Ditch, October 3, 2002 11:34 AM