War on the Countryside: British Public Thinks Govt 'Unfairly' Prioritises Urban Over Rural

A considerable majority of Britons believe the UK’s Labour Government “unfairly neglects those living in the countryside” and prioritises urban over rural issues, polling states. Getty Images Following accusations that the British government is declaring war on the countryside to further anti-rural class war goals of urban elites, a considerable majority of the British people seem to agree with the essential facts. According to a survey by British Polling Council member ORB for campaign group The Countryside Alliance, a massive three-quarters of Britons at 76 per cent think the government “prioritises urban issues over rural issues”. There is a real perception of a fairness failure in the statistics, with two-thirds at 65 per cent saying they agree “the Labour government unfairly neglects those living in the countryside”, and 64 per cent that the Labour government “does not care about people who live in the countryside “. Hounds meet members of the public during the Tedworth Hunt’s Boxing Day meet in Pewsey, Wiltshire. Picture date: Friday December 26, 2025. (Photo by Ben Birchall/PA Images via Getty Images) The UK government has rolled out a raft of anti-countryside policies over the past year, including several that could have been designed to - or at least will have the impact of - destroying farms by making them uneconomical. Among them was a now rowed-back death tax grab that would see many small family farms broken up and sold off when the present generation of farmers should die and be left unable to leave them intact to their heirs, a measure defeated after months of protest and negative headlines. Another, the hiking of animal welfare standards, would alone not be a cause for concern except it comes at the same time meat imports into Britain soar , with no import controls to ensure foreign producers have to meet the same standards planned, leaving British farmers simply unable to compete. A similar process of flooding the UK market with cheaper to produce meat in the 19th century caused a long and deep rural depression in Britain that depopulated the countryside for a century. But even among these economic measures undermining the British countryside, the heavily urban-focussed Labour government is launching cultural attacks on the countryside too, with the same animal welfare bill coming after the traditional vestiges of the already banned sport of foxhunting. Rural communities still go through the centuries-old motions of the hunt without actually pursuing quarry given - as the Countryside Alliance notes - the tradition forms “part of the social fabric of rural Britain”. Yet this too is to be stamped out. CHIDDINGSTONE CAUSEWAY, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 26: Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is seen as riders with horses and hounds in the background take part in the Old Surrey, Burstow and West Kent Hunt Boxing Day Meet (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) Alliance chairman Tim Bonner said of these developments and the new polling: When Keir Starmer said that he ‘wanted a new relationship with the countryside’ we all assumed...

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