Labour can win the next election – if it reconnects with rural voters

Today the Fabian Society publishes Labour Country, a report outlining how Labour can reconnect with rural voters. As part of this research we carried out three focus groups with rural voters last year, discussing rural life, political concerns and perceptions of political parties. Participants had all either voted Labour or considered voting Labour and ended up voting for somebody else.

The first session took place in St Asaph in North Wales in the constituency of Vale of Clwyd, which Labour narrowly regained from the Conservatives in 2017 (with a swing of 11.9 per cent, having lost the seat in 2015). The second took place in the village of Probus in Cornwall, where participants came from the neighbouring villages of Malpas and Tregony too. All are in the constituency of Truro and Falmouth, which remained Conservative in 2017 but witnessed a 22.5 per cent swing to Labour.

The final group was in Clay Cross in North East Derbyshire, with participants drawn from nearby villages including Duckmanton. In 2017, the Conservatives took North East Derbyshire from Labour with a 12.5 per cent swing.

What do these rural residents think of politics and the political parties – and is Corbyn’s Labour gaining ground in the countryside? Political disaffection and contempt for the political class were common to all three groups.

In Clay Cross, one woman said: “I don’t think them in Westminster really know what it’s like in places like this.” While in Probus, a participant said: “Do you know what, they haven’t got a clue. None of them. If they wanted to do something, come down and speak to the people in the countryside… and understand the way of life and how things tick down here.”

The Conservative Party was given short shrift in all three groups, including in Clay Cross where the majority of the group had voted Conservative in 2017. As a man in St Asaph put it: “A lot of these Conservative MPs [are] big landowners that have nothing to do with farmers or farming people at all. Toffs.” In Clay Cross, a Conservative voter said: “I just don’t think they understand the average person, the normal person and how they live.”

There were mixed views on the Labour Party, with groups in St Asaph and Probus more positive and Clay Cross more negative – perhaps reflecting the varied swing at the 2017 general election in the three locations. But there were some constant threads through all the groups, notably that Labour lost its way under Tony Blair and New Labour.

In Clay Cross there was a feeling Labour no longer stood for anything, and respondents neither felt like Labour was ‘for people like me’ nor that it understood their area. One woman said: “They should represent the working man, they should.”

In Probus, while the overriding message was that “nobody understands – you just get sick and fed up with it actually”, there was a little more faith in Labour. One participant said: “Labour became the New Conservatives, and now hopefully it’s getting back to what Labour should be about, which is about the working class.” There was also a sense that young people trusted Labour, with one woman in her twenties who was raised on a farm saying: “A lot of my generation have faith in the Labour party.”

In St Asaph, one man said “Labour is big cities. London is a prime example”, while another described Labour as “an elitist Islington set”. But this criticism was mixed with praise for the modern Labour Party. There was recognition that Labour in office had done good things: bus passes, free prescriptions, tax credits and Sure Start were all named.

In all groups it was felt that Labour did not listen sufficiently to local people in rural areas. In Clay Cross a woman said: “I just wish they would listen, just really, really listen to the average person”; in Probus a man said that Labour should “spend more time in rural, underprivileged areas”; and in St Asaph a man recommended that Labour should think “outside the box and not just in cities”.

The leadership of the Labour party was raised frequently by participants in the Probus and St Asaph groups. In Probus, Jeremy Corbyn was described by one participant as “incredibly weak”, while another didn’t vote Labour because while Corbyn would be a “nice chap” for a neighbour “you need someone with a little more force”.

On balance, however, participants felt that Jeremy Corbyn was real, authentic and more in touch than the previous leadership. While the Labour Party as a whole was seen as a primarily urban party, Corbyn himself was not described in those terms.

In Probus, Corbyn was described by one woman as “just a bit real. Just a bit more normal”. People also appreciated the fact that “he does commute everywhere himself. He gets on all the trains, buses”. And a Conservative-voting woman liked the fact that “he spoke as an ordinary person would speak to another”.

Similarly, in St Asaph, one woman said that Corbyn is “the first politician I’ve liked in my life. First time I’ve really bothered, all my family voted for him in the end”, and another participant said: “I like his blunders, I like his gaffes, because he’s honest, he is himself. And I think that the sincerity and normality appeals to people, because we are sick of being talked down to and patronised.”

A Labour voter who was unimpressed with Corbyn when he became leader was won over during the election campaign: “He’s genuine – whether you like him or not. May and other people, they’re so false, they’re just fake.”

Tobias Phibbs is research and assistant editor at the Fabians and author of the report.

A more extensive write up of the Labour Country focus groups can be downloaded here.