Why aren't the Tory leadership contenders courting rural voters?

Around nine million people – over 17 per cent of the population – live in an area classed as ‘rural’. That number is set to grow; by 2025, it has been estimated that the population of the English countryside will have increased by half a million. So surely, when a politician is bidding to become the next prime minister, it would make sense to consider what the rural population’s priorities might be.

A national survey of rural opinion on the leadership contest, organised by the Countryside Alliance, would indicate that this isn’t happening. It’s far from new to say that farming communities are worried about Brexit, and concerned that their needs aren’t being considered in the debate. But that’s not the only cause for concern. According to the survey, just over three per cent of those questioned thought that the interests of rural people had been promoted in the Brexit process so far, while only 26 per cent thought that the Conservative party ‘understands rural Britain’.