Agricultural History Review, Volume 56 Part 1 (2008), p. 110

The history of the Labour Party in rural areas is not, to any kind of radical, a happy one. In the accepted accounts, with exceptions of 1945 and 1997, Labour has had virtually no impact in the countryside outside a small number of seats, typically in East Anglia. At one level this is perhaps not surprising. A substantial section of the party nationally regarded the rural areas as politically backward, trapped by some version of Marx’s famous phrase – ‘the idiocy of rural life’. More moderate voices saw Labour as the party of the urban areas, fostered and protected by a mass trade union movement, conditions which clearly did not exist in the countryside. Finally, there were those who argued that the ‘tyranny of the countryside’ meant that farm workers, rural craft workers and even tenant farmers were so under the control of the Conservative squirearchy as to make the free expression of political views impossible.

Against this a slightly longer view would suggest a possible different line of argument. In 1910, and especially in 1906, the Liberal Party held a huge number of rural seats, as well as drawing on the more traditional urban areas of radical support. Further, Socialism had a special relationship with the countryside through the radical ruralism of the Chartists, William Morris and Robert Blatchford. However, between 1918 and 1939 most of the old Liberal urban areas went to Labour (though not all) while virtually none of the rural ones did. Seen in this way there was no ‘natural’ link between the rural and Conservatism, rather Labour in some way failed to address the countryside in such a way as to create a critical mass of voters.

The ‘conflict’ between these two sets of ideas forms the hub of this extremely important book. However this grossly oversimplifies what is a complex and subtle account. What Griffiths gives us is not only the first study of Labour in the rural areas which is based on detailed academic research but one which will shape the field for years to come.

The first section of the book consists of three fine chapters on what she calls ‘political landscapes’. These look essentially at the labour movement’s own sense of their history of the countryside. Beginning from the notion of ‘dispossession’ – that the land was ‘stolen from the people’ – she moves through a discussion of the idea of the rural voter to a sustained account of the rural idyll and Labour. This is not simply an introduction; rather it is a nuanced, intellectual history, of the shaping of the inter-war labour movement and Labour Party. There then follows a section on the rural labour movement looking at the national campaigns in the rural areas, at rural Labour parties and finally at trades unionism. The final section looks at the development of Labour policy on agriculture and rural areas.

At one level, as Griffiths says, the narrative is one of minor success and even progress. By 1935–9 the Labour Party had had some real successes in rural areas. For example there were practically no rural constituencies without a Divisional Labour party, in stark contrast to 1918. By 1939 it had nearly doubled its number of rural seats, although it still held less than 20. More striking still, its share of the vote had increased significantly. In a similar way Labour policy towards rural areas although still based around land nationalisation and a living wage in agriculture, had moved, albeit pragmatically, to a real policy for the whole of agriculture and the countryside. As she writes in the conclusion these changes and the work taken to achieve them were not simply about the countryside but ‘about establishing a presence across the country as whole ... They helped to bolster Labour’s aspirations to be a mature political party, which represented more than sectional interests ...’ (p.339) nor should we, she reminds us, forget the real achievements of Labour’s brief periods of office. Indeed with hindsight they are of real importance. The 1924 government reinstated the Wages Board, and a national minimum wage, encouraged rural house building, but also introduced the sugar beet subsidy which many historians now see as a key element in the survival of many arable farms in the inter-war period. The 1929–31 government was responsible for the introduction of marketing schemes which are universally recognised as a central part of the ‘recovery’ of sections of agriculture in the 1930s, for the genesis of the 1932 Town and Country Planning Act, and the recognition of the need to support agricultural prices. Few inter-war Tory governments made such an impact on the countryside.

Yet this kind of narrative, as Griffiths says, is too simple. The ‘national policy’ for agriculture meant, by the mid 1930s at the latest, looking to the farmers for support, and to the ‘defence’ of agriculture by subsidy. This was an anathema to most rural trade unionists and many rank-and-file country members. I remember Jack Boddy, the Norfolk-born National Secretary of the NUAAW saying that Labour’s 1947 Agriculture Act which made subsidies permanent was the real ‘great betrayal’ of the farm worker who got nothing from it. Nor was the progress simple. Griffiths documents carefully and with real understanding the huge difficulties involved in building and, above all maintaining Labour Party branches over large geographical areas and among a largely non-unionised workforce.

Above all she stresses the unevenness of the process, and here I will quote at length again from the conclusion.

For all the party’s rhetoric about the importance of its new political battleground, there was no such thing as ‘The Countryside’ to be won over – no stereotypical landscape, where a model electorate might respond to a magic formula. Instead, there were many distinctive economies and social geographies, where political traditions and contemporary priorities could produce varied political outcomes (p.330).

The whole book is testimony to this complexity – and is full of insight into region, tradition and, dare one say it, mere chance, all of which had a key part in Labour’s success or failure between the wars. Two examples will serve. In many areas political Liberalism remained a real force. In the 1920s the Liberals always fielded over 300 candidates, many in rural seats. By 1931 there were 119 and in 1935 161. The presence of a Liberal candidate could work for or against Labour either splitting the radical or the conservative vote depending on local conditions. Also more two-way fights meant Labour had to move to a much broader base of support, rather than relying on a small, sectional group within a rural area, for example miners, to win at the margins.

That takes me to my second point – and one already touched on. Who were countrymen and women? Even in 1921 there were only 141 constituencies (less than a quarter) where more then 20 per cent of the population were employed in agriculture. Even in these areas Labour’s appeal to the farm worker or even the small farmer was clearly missing huge numbers of voters. The party recognised that by the late 1930s with an appeal to the ‘countryside’ as a whole. How successful that was is impossible to determine. Although 1945 saw huge gains in the rural areas we cannot judge, without work like Griffiths’ on the post-war period.

As I said earlier, this is a very important book. This is not only because it looks at Labour and agriculture, or is another study of inter-war policy, although it has both those elements. It is important because it presents a history of the politics of inter-war rural Britain in the context of economic, social and cultural change at both national and grass roots levels. It challenges a lot of assumptions and demands that we look at the other parties in the same way. It also cries out for somebody to look at 1945–51 to see what happened next.