The disturbing rise of the rural Greens
Published in The Spectator on the 27th of August 2023
In the shire counties of England, a dark force is rising. No, this isn’t a dreadful attempt at Tolkien fanfiction, but rather the challenging electoral predicament we Conservatives find ourselves in as we confront a new kind of opposition. And this time, the little furry-footed gardening folk are not on the side of the angels. I’m talking, of course, about the rise of the rural Green.
In Suffolk, they are now the protest vote of choice, having taken control of three local councils – one outright and two in coalition. They’re springing up from Surrey to Staffordshire. And this is, I’m afraid, just the beginning.
Green party policies nationally, let’s be honest, are often taken from the top shelf of the crackpot aisle. The party wants to pare back the military and replace it with handholding and singing kumbaya; ban the advertising of alcohol – heaven knows we’ll need it if ever they get into power; wrench us all from our motor cars; and tax us into submission. So how, you might ask, is socialism with a side order of nettle soup proving so popular in Conservative heartlands? Well, the problem is they don’t really talk about all that stuff and, whisper it, they work hard to get elected and stay elected. This final point is a sore one. Too often we Conservatives have taken our rural vote for granted and not worked hard enough to retain it. Our councillors have been good, ‘known’ in the community and well-liked. They do all the right things; turn up at parish council meetings and local fetes and support local causes. But – ultimately – they have traded on the ‘personal vote’. And while the personal vote can help, it is never enough to withstand the tidal wave of a national swing against the party. May’s local elections were the first test of this and only a few rural Tories survived in head-to-head fights with this new breed of rural Green.
So, what are the new countryside Greens? We like to call them watermelons – green on the outside, red on the inside. They refer to themselves as mangos – green on the outside, liberal yellow on the inside. Putting fruits to one side, they are activists. They don’t just photograph themselves pointing at a pothole, they plant daffodils in the things, then take a photo. They don’t just turn up at fetes and community events, they see something that upsets people in the community – take water quality in our rivers as an example – then form and run a group of likeminded people under the guise of fixing it. The people in the group don’t even notice they’re part of the Green party insurgency. They just think they’re doing a good thing and, whisper it again, they usually are. This sort of grassroots activism is how Tories have often fought and embedded ourselves in urban seats, but we don’t do it often enough on our rural doorstep.
The other element to the Green success is that they are the ultimate Nimbys. The problem with a Nimby is that we can all identify one from a distance but up close in our own communities, they just come across as thoroughly reasonable people fighting our corner. They oppose new houses while complaining young people can’t get on the housing ladder, fight the generation and transmission of clean energy while saying we need it, and even oppose sustainable travel schemes. From afar it’s lunacy, but up close it’s all rather popular. And because so far the Greens haven’t had power on rural councils, they haven’t had to make any trade-offs. It’s all been an easy ride of activism and pushing back against the ‘evil Tories’.
We Tories have not helped ourselves, of course. Our approach to the countryside has too often been muddleheaded. The Conservatives have long been the defender of our green and pleasant land, and stood up for rural communities and the farming community. Unfortunately, our other great quality has been our focus on home ownership. And that meant building in the countryside. To our government’s credit, both the Prime Minister and Michael Gove have seen the backlash this has created and – unlike Keir Starmer – have drawn up plans to protect our green belt and, instead, focus on regenerating towns, expanding some major centres and brownfield development. We have shut the stable door but in too many places the horse has already bolted and we must work hard to regain the trust of rural communities.
On agriculture, the Tories are in a paradoxical situation. We want food security, and more people eating British produce. But post Brexit, we also want to be global, strike trade deals and bring good value produce to Britain without tariffs. We also want to take control of our borders, reduce our reliance on foreign labour and get some of the over 700,000 people on long-term sickness back into work, putting aside the logistical challenges of getting Dave from Hackney picking strawberries in Cornwall. The problem, eagle-eyed readers will have seen, is that these three things don’t easily co-exist. If we want more people eating British produce, it needs to be competitive and that means not necessarily paying what Dave from Hackney would expect. That means relying on seasonal migrant workers, who remain rather essential. We also make life harder for the British farmer if we undercut him or her with cheaper foreign food that’s not produced to the same standards. This all means compromise, quotas, making sure we’re at the forefront of automation and, well, complex trade-offs. In the brave new world of three-word slogans, it’s not easy to make these points.
Returning to our rural Greens. They have rather neatly stepped into the void where we have, simultaneously, annoyed rural communities with ill-conceived development and farmers by not doing enough to support them. Compound those issues with things like water quality in our rivers – as much the fault of Ofwat as water companies – and we Conservatives are feeling rather bruised. We’re also realising how difficult it can be to land a political blow on rural Greens. Their largely bonkers national policies are kept under wraps and attempts to attack them over these issues are often perceived as ‘politicising’ local democracy. They trade on being likeable and that is their greatest weapon. Even loyal conservatives often confess to voting for their local Green councillor. People like the friendly little Green man pulling a traffic cone out of the local river.
All, however, is not lost. After the Tory defeat to the Greens in May comes real hope. First, the Green party is having to take decisions in Suffolk – where they have control of three local councils – and, as we saw in Brighton, that doesn’t always go well. The first few months have been rather quiet, but cracks are already appearing. At the moment the Greens in Suffolk are not actually doing anything very green at all. Some of their prominent members are disgruntled ex-Tories, others come from a farming background. So far, it’s all been rather sensible. But that approach won’t wash with the Green hardliners and it is going to lead with clashes with the party nationally. The rank and file will also break their shackles and take control if all those in charge do is offer what they see as continuity conservatism. By keeping their wacky policies hidden away from rural voters the Greens will ultimately release a tidal wave of frustration from their glue covered, CND badge-wearing membership. Then the disaster of Brighton will truly come to our market towns and villages.
The Conservatives need to act as well and, in Rishi Sunak, we have a Prime Minister determined to restore our reputation as defenders of the countryside. Yes, we need to clean up our rivers, protect our countryside, redouble our efforts to help nature recover and do that all important grass-roots activism. But we can’t out green the Greens. We also need to return to our core values and let the Green party be the Green party. Because, underneath it all, they’re just itching to snatch away your car keys.