FARMING VOTE IN BRITAIN AFTER STORMS, A RETURN TO TRADITIONAL PATTERN

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32321, 12 June 1970, Page 10

FARMING VOTE IN BRITAIN AFTER STORMS, A RETURN TO TRADITIONAL PATTERN

<By

JOHN FAIRHALL,

in the "Guardian”, Manchester)

I Reprinted by arrangement)

Farmers, the Conservative Party manifesto says, “are frustrated and disgruntled.” And after the farmers’ lobbying demonstrations and meat market boycotts, it is a statement hard to contradict. The point at issue, however, is whether the current state of mind and finances of the farmers will have any effect on the outcome of the General Election The answer seems to be only marginally, but of course if the Government’s majority is minute it could be decisively.

The political strength of farmers has been waning for a century but still lingers on. The National Farmers’ Union can rightly claim to have persuaded the Conservative Party over the past 18 months to modify radically its agricultural policy. The Tory proposal for a neat switchover from guaranteed

prices to import levies, which had the N.F.U. howling early last year, now includes a three-year transition period and promise of a permanent fall-back guarantee for producer prices. Relying on levies could save the Exchequer large

sums in subsidies. It did not greatly worry the farmers or the Tories that the consumer would have to pay for this saving through higher food prices. Farmers were worried at the prospect of a slow and clumsy adjustment of producer prices and levies that, I while balancing out in the long term, might in the short term squeeze hard many individual fanners. So worried (were they that last year many were talking of abandoning their traditional support for the Tories.

Guarantee Given One reslult was the long series of meetings between the N.F.U. and the Tory. .Shadow Minister of Agriculture, Mr Joseph Godber. The final outcome was the writing in of the fall-back guarantee. On the face of it the farmers could not lose. If levies did not keep up prices and their incomes, then the guarantee would.

There is one basic doubt. [Mr Godber has refused to say at what level the fall-back guarantee would operate. The manifesto is quite specific about the change in the agricultural support system, saving the Exchequer some) £250 millions a year, and that! this could be used for taxi reduction and selective social | security improvements. ' ; Would this foundation stone of Tory tax reduction be pulled out to maintain farmers’ income? Or would that fall-back guarantee be fixed so low as to cover only production costs? Having tried and failed to I get Mr Godber to commit| himself, the farmers generally have dropped their opposition to the Tories. Their current financial troubles, and frustrated expectations, have produced a virulent campaign against the Government, and in the heat of that they have taken the Tory( promise on trust. It is largely a return to traditional patterns. Farmers vote Tory, along with some farm workers, but a solid block of farm workers—at least a third—vote Labour.

Food Prices

As far as the general public is concerned, agriculture as an election issue mainly resolves itself into food prices. Labour speakers I are systematically pointing out that the Tory policy would be one of higher food prices, generally without

pursuing the Tory claim as it would mean only a penny in the pound per year on the cost of living for three years. Agriculture becomes a small part of the central cost-of-liv-ing issue in which current economic management, taxation and incomes control loom far larger than present or future agricultural policy. Any public sympathy for farmers certainly falls well short of a readiness to pay more for food to augment farm incomes. Even to some economists, the argument pumped out by the National Farmers’ Union that agricultural expansion is justified by import saving and balance of payments benefits does not hold water. For the general public it is abstract, while food prices and the Exchequer subsidy on an average of over £lOOO a year to every full-time farmer are concrete. But the electorate is in general urban, and reared on a cheap-food policy. There are constituencies where the farmers and farm workers make up a politically significant proportion of the electorate.

60 Significant .Seats

On 1961 census and 1966 ! election results, Mr R. W. Howarth of the Agriculture Department of the University ' College of North Wales, Bangor, found 60 seats in which the estimated “farmers’ vote” covering farmers, farm workers and I their voting dependants—was (politically significant His [definition of “politically signijficant” is one in which the farmers’ vote exceeded half the simple majority at the 1966 election. Of these seats 37 were in England, seven in Wales and 16 in Scotland. Party distribution was 40 held by Tories, II by Labour and nine by I Liberal. I When he wrote 18 months ago, Mr Howarth concluded I that the agricultural vote was I virtually irrelevant to either Labour or Conservative Party. The narrowing of the gap between the parties has made him modify that view. If the majority is minute, agriculture could be] decisive, as could several (other minority issues. 1 Working over the marginal ! i constituencies in the light of I the 1966 census throws up four Conservative-held and three Labour-held seats in which the farming vote related to the total electorate and the 1966 majority is statistically highly significant.

Liberals Exposed

At Cardigan, as in other Welsh rural seats, the com-

bination of Welsh farming difficulties and a Plaid Cymru candidate pledged to opposition to the Common Market, puts the Labour candidate under strain. The Liberal Party emerges as the only one highly exposed to the agricultural vote, in the South-west and in Scotland. In 1966 nine of 12 Liberal seats were rural, and five of these were in Scotland. This sensitivity has made the Bodmin Liberal candidate hedge on the Common Market issue. His party is committed to Europe but Mr Paul Tyler found it necessary to say he would not vote for anything that might damage Cornish agriculture. With their small farms, poor soil, and lack of capital, some Cornish and Devon farmers are already finding survival difficult. They would also get the dirty end of the stick, because of structural and geographical reasons. if Britain joined the Common Market. In more prosperous farming areas, the Common Market is not yet a major issue. That will come in another election.

Pull Of the Land

( That will be the time for (agriculture to show its political strength. It is a strength based on something less tangible than the number of farming voters. The desire of a Briton for his own piece of land—whether the farms of Jim Callaghan and Richard Crossman or a commuter’s suburban garden—is solidly built into the national psyche. Farmers and land-owners are also well dug into the social structure of many areas and a large number of local (bodies. There are 40 M.P.s (who are either farmers or (have big agricultural interests land the Lords is stiff with (land-owners. Read the pro(ceedings of, say, the ComImons Select Committee on i Agriculture and the tendency [for M.P.s to act first as farmers and only secondly as members of their party comes through clearly. The National Farmers’ Union and the County Landowners Association are also both skilful and assiduous lobbyists as are the agricultural feedstuff, i chemicals and equipment suppliers. I Against this background it its not surprising to find both (parties committing themselves to agricultural expansion. Whether this means higher income in real terms for the present number of farmers remains to be seen. Meanwhile, farmers complain of the Government grossly neglecting them but there has not as yet been a marked (rise in the number of bankirupt farmers.