Reply #31: Conservative rural England is in crisis [View All]

[airstrip1]

In the past ten years agricultural communities have been hit by BSE, foot and mouth disease and some poor harvests. To make matters worse the flow of government subsidies that used to prop up farming has begun to dry up. New Labour, which draws most of its support from the urban population, is not sympathetic. They point out that the Tory voting rural communities were quite happy to see miners and steel workers thrown on the scrap heap when their industries were deemed to be 'unviable'. Now many in government think it is time for the farmers to face the same economic medicine. It is this animosity between rural and urban England that underlies the bitterness of the conflict around hunting. Although Britain was the first country to experience the Industrial Revolution the levers of political power for over two hundred years remained in the hand of people with very close ties to the landed elite. The Conservative party represented their interests and was seen as the 'natural party of government'. This cozy relationship broke down with the arrival of New Labour. Blair sold out the old socialist left and decided the party had to become the servants of the all powerful international capitalist system. Without the backing of the corporations the prospects of the Tory party getting back into power are increasingly remote. They simply can not muster enough votes amongst the populace of the big English cities to turn out the Labour government. Their plight is not helped by the fact that the growing immigrant population in the UK are very reluctant to vote Conservative. Even amongst the large Muslim community, who might be expected to be hostile to Blair, a majority will probably still support Labour at the next General Election. Rural England now finds itself out in the cold. The resort to mass demonstrations and mob violence is a sign of its desperation. It would appear that since they can no longer manipulate the political system to get their way then they are going to resort to violence. I think that you can expect more trouble in the years ahead.