Why do farmers vote Tory?

[Gathursty]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/results
*Link shows a map of the constituencies coloured in with red Labour seats clustered in urban centres and Tory blue seats filling the remaining countryside from the South Coast in an unbroken chain all the way to Kielder Forest.

Please explain and offer suggestions on how can this literal working class be persuaded to vote Red instead.

I don't want this thread to be slid by the mention of rich landowners as I'm sure there are many more farmers.

 

[telstarbox]

Remember as it's first past the post, not all of those MPs won a majority so they don't necessarily represent all views in their constituency (of course this applies to Labour MPs in cities as well).

And not everyone who lives/works in the countryside is a farmer. They might work in the City and commute in from their Sussex village.

Possible policy reasons for actual farmers voting Tory include their positions on fox hunting, environmental regulation, the EU or being 'tough on crime'.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think you misunderstand FPTP. An MP wins because of a simple majority. It's the Government overall which may have received a minority of votes.

 

[telstarbox]

Sorry, I meant that MPs don't have to win an absolute majority (50% of the votes) - for example, in Hastings & Rye, Amber Rudd won with 41% in 2010 and 45% in 2015.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Would the actual number of votes cast by farmers in any constituency be large enough to sway the result in an election, when compared to the actual numbers eligible to vote in a constituency.

Remember, not all farms are the family owned business as once was the case a few generations ago.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I think you misunderstand FPTP. An MP wins because of a simple majority.

No they don't. They may sometimes win with a majority, but it doesn't necessarily follow. They will win because they have the largest number of votes, but that can be as little as n+1 votes.

Would the actual number of votes cast by farmers in any constituency be large enough to sway the result in an election, when compared to the actual numbers eligible to vote in a constituency.

In a handful of constituencies, possibly, although probably not in that many.

Rural constituencies tend to vote Conservative because they are filled with the retired middle classes, with the odd expensive development filled with high-powered businessmen. This is certainly true of the safest Conservative seats, such as Penrith, Hexham or Buckingham. Constituencies with significant numbers of rural workers tended to actually vote Liberal (Democrat), especially in the south west (and in Berwick upon Tweed), really until the most recent election.

Remember that the people who do the grafting on farms don't tend to be registered voters, especially given the number of itinerant workers from Eastern Europe doing the actual legwork.

You'll have a job on persuading the retired stockbrokers who inhabit the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales to vote Labour.

 

[Oswyntail]

Please explain and offer suggestions on how can this literal working class be persuaded to vote Red instead..

The whole premise of this thread is flawed. It is no longer the case, if it ever was, that "classes" are represented by the respective parties. There has always been a strong working class element in the Conservative Party, and the Labour Party has never won an election without the support of the romantic Middle Class (by which I mean those, generally well-educated, who believe they know what the "working class" need - so long as it doesn't really impinge on them). Recently, the City has seen its interests much more pandered to by Labour, and is populated more by the "working class" types you see in "The Apprentice" than traditional Middle Class.At present, I get the feeling that Labour is losing support among its target audience to UKIP, and is reliant more than ever on the Romantics (hence Corbyn)
Until it understands the complexities of British society (in particular why UKIP is attracting the working class that used to support it) your "Red" party is doomed.

 

[Trog]

I would have thought farmers being businessmen with a very large amount of money tied up in the land and machinery vote Conservative because they think they will benefit from their promise of low tax, hands off polices. Where as in the cities Labour are going to get the votes of those who think they will benefit from a tax and spend, high welfare way of doing things.

 

[crehld]

I think you misunderstand FPTP. An MP wins because of a simple majority. It's the Government overall which may have received a minority of votes.

Sorry, I meant that MPs don't have to win an absolute majority (50% of the votes) - for example, in Hastings & Rye, Amber Rudd won with 41% in 2010 and 45% in 2015.

The correct term is a 'plurality' of votes. There is no majority required in first-past-the-post.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Why do all farmers vote Conservative?

Not all do I suspect. I also suspect the vast majority of residents in rural constituencies are not farmers. However, let's assume they are and they're all Conservative voters. Here are three possible explanations:

1. People vote based on their party identification rather than the substantive policy offer made by political parties. So what the Conservative party offers is irrelevant. New generations of voters identify with their parents' and social circles' political allegiances, form a party identification based on this and vote accordingly. The Labour party has its roots in the trade union movement, so it makes perfect sense much of their support is based in urban and industrial areas. Class dealignment challenges this model somewhat, and it doesn't really hold true in marginal seats, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest it does in safe seat areas.

2. Farmers vote Conservative because it suits them to do so. From a farmer's perspective, they'd be better off with a Conservative government than with any other government. Their choice to vote Conservative is motivated by pure rational desire to achieve what is best for them.

3. The psychological effects of the first-past-the-post system skew the support for the Conservative party. Many people who do support Labour or other parties, simply won't bother if the perception is the constituency is a safe Conservative seat. The perception will be there is no point voting in an election where the conclusion is foregone, thus distorting the reported "support" for the Conservatives.

 

[TheEdge]

Lets not pretend its all about FPTP and majorities.

There is a lot of animosity for the actions of New Labour and the blairites. The biggest things was the foxhunting ban. There is a lot of anger over that, as an attack on rural life and as part of a manufactured class war. Then there are Labour policies which are viewed as urbancentric, things like opposing the badger cull and building on farmland. All adds up to a general anti Labour perception, not just farmers but in rural areas generally.

 

[crehld]

Lets not pretend its all about FPTP and majorities.

There is a lot of animosity for the actions of New Labour and the blairites. The biggest things was the foxhunting ban. There is a lot of anger over that, as an attack on rural life and as part of a manufactured class war. Then there are Labour policies which are viewed as urbancentric, things like opposing the badger cull and building on farmland. All adds up to a general anti Labour perception, not just farmers but in rural areas generally.

I remain sceptical about the link to foxhunting here. The Conservative party is hardly the party of the fox hunters, with a significant number of party members and MPs supporting the ban (it's why Cameron could only offer a free vote on repealing the legislation, before realising he had little support in parliament even among his own MPs so had to withdraw the vote anyway). It's only anecdotal evidence, but the three farmers I know actually support the foxhunting ban and remain extremely aggrieved at the damage caused to their land by hunts.

You're probably right about the badger cull, but I don't quite follow you with the building on farmland thing. Indeed, the Labour party is not responsible for building on farmland. The developers are, and they bought land for a significant price from the farmers themselves!

 

[plannerman]

My inlaws are farmers and staunch Conservatives, and it's because the farm is a business. They see the Tories as being more business-friendly, in terms of employment rules, taxation and so on. Interestingly, I'm sure the workers on the farm would be natural Labour supporters - I'm equally sure that few, if any, of them bother to vote. The big challenge for Labour as I see it will be to address why so many of its 'natural' supporters don't bother to vote - not just for them, but for anyone.

 

[Barn]

It's not just countryside, there are plenty of small towns which are very blue. By their nature, farmers own a lot of land but ultimately each farmer is only one person with one vote.

Labour is mostly concentrated in large towns/cities.

Labour appears to be seeing its core demographics as students, public and third sector workers, certain ethnic minorities, 'hipsters', Guardian readers, etc. These are all concentrated in cities.

The traditional blue collar working class are leaving Labour behind voting for UKIP (which encourages a Conservative win under FPTP), the Conservatives (don't underestimate the extent to which this happens) or simply not voting because they don't see a party for them.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The biggest things was the foxhunting ban. There is a lot of anger over that

Is there? Really?

I can't speak for anywhere else, but plenty of my family live over in the North Lakes above Keswick. Some people were angry at the foxhunting ban, almost exclusively the hunters it has to be said, but plenty more were either in favour or completely ambivalent. I know the farmers next door (on both sides) to where my (ex) in-laws live were glad of it because they were sick to the back teeth of the hunt ruining their pasture and scaring the cattle with their quadbikes, not to mention having to go around and patch up all the fences the hunt had cut through.

And yes, I know my anecdotes from a small village in the Lakes are not the same as data. But other than a small elite in places like Gloucestershire, I see precious little grassroots support for the likes of the Countryside Alliance.

As for Labour being pro-development, it was Labour who brought in the Green Belt in 1947 and it is the Conservatives who are getting rid of localising planning controls. And it's the farmers who are selling the land off for development!

The big challenge for Labour as I see it will be to address why so many of its 'natural' supporters don't bother to vote - not just for them, but for anyone.

In rural areas, it tends to be that they are not allowed to. As we see in Lincolnshire, plenty of the itinerant agricultural labour is now done by people from Eastern Europe. They're not allowed to vote in general elections.

The big issue for Labour remains that much of their support tends to be poorer, and poorer people have much less security in their lives. I'm on my fifth home in the last two and a half years now, and getting registered to vote every time I've moved has been a right pain in the backside. I am registered as it is important to me, but I can very much see how and why people let their registrations lapse if they're moving from one rented flat to another every 6-12 months. So can the Conservatives, hence why they're using registered voters now (and not just before the general election) as the basis for gerrymandering reforming the constituency boundaries.

 

[DarloRich]

Would the actual number of votes cast by farmers in any constituency be large enough to sway the result in an election, when compared to the actual numbers eligible to vote in a constituency.

Remember, not all farms are the family owned business as once was the case a few generations ago.

Richmondshire - where i lived in the past - They weighed the conservative vote then put most of the other votes in the Conservative pile on the basis that you made a mistake and wanted to vote Tory as no one living in such a decent area could vote labour

My inlaws are farmers and staunch Conservatives, and it's because the farm is a business. They see the Tories as being more business-friendly, in terms of employment rules, taxation and so on.

That's the real reason - and the subsidy - along with the expected attack on land/property ownership and punative taxation that yakkers seem to think will come with every labour government.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The traditional blue collar working class are leaving Labour behind voting for UKIP (which encourages a Conservative win under FPTP), the Conservatives (don't underestimate the extent to which this happens) or simply not voting because they don't see a party for them.

The impact of the UKIP vote on Labour is massively over-stated.

This is some interesting reading: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandp...-this-be-a-springboard-for-the-party-in-2020/

I won't quote it as it is very long.

Of the 120 seats where they came second, only about 40 were to Labour, with the other 80 being to the Conservatives. Of those 80, 33 were in the south east, and there it is clear that that correlates with a collapse in the Lib Dem vote.

There has always been a large subset of "working class" people who vote Conservative because the traditional conservative message of working hard and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps strikes a chord with them. Margaret Thatcher and, even more so, John Major in 1992 managed to get them on board (they were a big reason why Kinnock lost); Blair won them over in 1997 with his third way brand of politics.

The current incarnation of Buller Boy Bully Conservatives cannot speak to these voters, and I think it is clear that UKIP are the ones speaking to these people now. I don't think Corbyn can speak to them either, tbh. I think Labour need a more personable leader than they currently have, but sadly there seems to be a dearth of people in the Labour party with the required gravitas. Chuka Umunna is probably the closest you'll get; the idea of a personality-free moral vacuum like Liz Kendall being in charge still gives me the shivers.

 

[Barn]

The impact of the UKIP vote on Labour is massively over-stated.

This is some interesting reading: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandp...-this-be-a-springboard-for-the-party-in-2020/

Of the 120 seats where they came second, only about 40 were to Labour, with the other 80 being to the Conservatives.

Thanks for the link, which I'll read tonight.

Haven't you got your conclusion the wrong way round though?

Where UKIP have come second to Labour, they have obviously failed to damage Labour's success as Labour have come first.

On the other hand, the seats in which UKIP have come second to the Conservatives are the ones which the Conservatives have won and where Labour's chance of winning the seat from them might have been scuppered by the high UKIP result diluting the 'non-Conservative' vote.

 

[DarloRich]

Thanks for the link, which I'll read tonight.

Haven't you got your conclusion the wrong way round though?

Where UKIP have come second to Labour, they have obviously failed to damage Labour's success as Labour have come first.

On the other hand, the seats in which UKIP have come second to the Conservatives are the ones which the Conservatives have won and where Labour's chance of winning the seat from them might have been scuppered by the high UKIP result diluting the 'non-Conservative' vote.

Do UKIP not dilute the Tory and Ultra Tory vote though?

UKIP always seem like old fashioned, pre Thatcherite, little England, hard right wing Tories of the type call me Dave wont allow

 

[Barn]

Do UKIP not dilute the Tory and Ultra Tory vote though?

UKIP always seem like old fashioned, pre Thatcherite, little England, hard right wing Tories of the type call me Dave wont allow

I think that has been true in the past, and probably still is in the Home Counties. The situation now, especially in the Midlands and North, is very different.

 

[DarloRich]

I think that has been true in the past, and probably still is in the Home Counties. The situation in the Midlands and North is very different.

Indeed. Sadly i am detached from the north now :cry: In the more industrial areas their message is much more "fear" based but was trying to relate the point on UKIP to the farmer friends i have.

They are old fashioned, dyed in the wool, true blues. Many were not happy with Rishi Sunak being selected. Even William Hague created mutterings!

 

[Tetchytyke]

On the other hand, the seats in which UKIP have come second to the Conservatives are the ones which the Conservatives have won and where Labour's chance of winning the seat from them might have been scuppered by the high UKIP result diluting the 'non-Conservative' vote.

Of the 80 seats where UKIP were second to the Conservatives, 33 were in the south east and almost all of them were where the Lib Dem vote has been strong for years but then suddenly collapsed. The Conservative majority in most of these was also significantly higher than the average majority in a constituency, and the majority increased since 2010.

My view is that Labour were rarely a serious contender in these constituencies, and were therefore starting from a very low base. The Lib Dems in 2005 and 2010 stood on a very Blairite platform and won people over from the Tories, but when their vote collapsed it generally went back to the Tories. The effect of this was to make UKIP look like they were doing better than they were. They were second, but they were a nowhere second. A good example of this would be Aylesbury.

I don't want to totally dismiss a party that got four million votes, but in Labour's heartland UKIP weren't pulling any more votes than the BNP were getting.

I know some media commentators tried to pin the blame for Ed Balls' narrow defeat on a UKIP vote, but it is impossible to tell; one could just as easily blame the 1200 people who voted Green, or even the 479 people who voted for the independent.

 

[Barn]

Indeed. Sadly i am detached from the north now :cry: In the more industrial areas their message is much more "fear" based but was trying to relate the point on UKIP to the farmer friends i have.

They are old fashioned, dyed in the wool, true blues. Many were not happy with Rishi Sunak being selected. Even William Hague created mutterings!

Agreed, in rural areas you still get the 'retired colonel' type characters in UKIP. This might have actually had a detoxifying effect on the Tories in some areas, as by comparison the modern Conservative party is quite socially liberal (equal marriage, etc).

 

[ExRes]

Perhaps it's as simple as 13 years of Blair/Brown failed to convince rural dwellers that Labour had anything to offer

 

[DarloRich]

Perhaps it's as simple as 13 years of Blair/Brown failed to convince rural dwellers that Labour had anything to offer

i am fairly sure my mates dad ( 60's) and his chums ( all farmers) were voting Tory long before Blair

 

[ExRes]

i am fairly sure my mates dad ( 60's) and his chums ( all farmers) were voting Tory long before Blair

Absolutely, but could/should that miserable 13 years have made people consider moving their vote ?

 

[Phil.]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/results
*Link shows a map of the constituencies coloured in with red Labour seats clustered in urban centres and Tory blue seats filling the remaining countryside from the South Coast in an unbroken chain all the way to Kielder Forest.

Please explain and offer suggestions on how can this literal working class be persuaded to vote Red instead.

I don't want this thread to be slid by the mention of rich landowners as I'm sure there are many more farmers.

Simple. A Tory government will always understand farmers. A Labour government doesn't. Who else but a Labour government would opt for a vegetarian minister of agriculture and then a vegan shadow minister. You only had to see how the Bliar government made a total shambles of the foot and mouth epidemic too see how they haven't a clue on country affairs. It was a Labour government that passed the Badger bill, now the creatures are breeding like flies, spreading T.B. through the dairy herd - it's no good denying it, talk to Gloucester and Somerset dairy farmers - and they destroy ground nesting birds eggs and chicks.
The average Labour Islingtonite simply is clueless on the real world. Have a read of Robin Page's books and you'll soon learn.

 

[AndrewE]

Simple. A Tory government will always understand farmers. A Labour government doesn't.

Maybe not so.. a Cheshire-bred daughter-of-farming friend of ours (of >40 yrs standing) has always said that farmers do best under Labour, and can't understand why they always vote Conservative!
Don't forget the complete difference between our upland hill-farmers and the barley-barons (who the Tories look after). 2 totally different industries, one neglected and the other shovelling the subsidies into their bank accounts.

 

[miami]

The correct term is a 'plurality' of votes. There is no majority required in first-past-the-post.

Correct. And in 2015 only 316 MPs (under half) got a majority of votes in their constituency.

If you subscribe to the theory that people who don't vote are voting for "none of the above" (I personally don't, I think people who refuse to vote are just scum p***ing on what our ancestors have fought for for generations), you'll find just two MPs managed to get a majority of their constituencies to vote for them -- Liverpool Walton (31,222/61,908
votes - 50.43%) and Knowsley (39,628/79,108 - 50.09%)

In Belfast South, 9,560 voted for the MP. 29397 voted for someone else. Include those not voting and 55,367 didn't vote for the MP.

We have a system, perhaps it's a working system, perhaps it's a good system, perhaps it's the best system, but there's still something wrong.

15 million people didn't vote - that's far more than voted for any one party. That's a problem.
19 million people voted for a party other than the winner, 11 million voted for the winner. That's a problem.
In 334 constituencies more people voted for a party other than the winner of that constituency. That's a problem.

Now at any one time these problems fall in favour of a specific MP or a specific party. It doesn't change the fact that people are not getting what they voted for.

On the other hand if you had a two-party system, you would get about 50% voting for the winner, but you'd still have 50% voting for the other side, that's not healthy, and we see how polarised the US becomes.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

We have a system, perhaps it's a working system, perhaps it's a good system, perhaps it's the best system, but there's still something wrong.

15 million people didn't vote - that's far more than voted for any one party. That's a problem.

When you work that figure of a percentage of those actually registered to vote, it is indeed a sad reflection on the British electorate. These days, there is postal voting available to save those concerned the trouble to walk to a polling station.

 

[richw]

Our Conservative MP is from a farming family.

The Conservatives seemingly have a lot more pro-farming policies than Labour - I believe the Lib Dems did have more pro-farmer policies.