Nine years ago, when Rishi Sunak was campaigning to be the Conservative candidate for Richmond in Yorkshire, he knew his background wouldn’t work in his favour. Here was a millionaire City slicker – fresh from a spell in Silicon Valley – standing in a rural safe seat against local rivals. William Hague, who was retiring from the seat, told him he’d need to do a crash course in country living. Sunak replied that he’d milk some cows right away. Now, the Prime Minister takes great pride in his familiarity with rural issues. He cites hill farming as a passion and boasts to friends of his ‘deep knowledge of sheep’.

The Prime Minister cites hill farming as a passion and boasts of his ‘deep knowledge of sheep’

The hope in No. 10 is that such knowledge could give the Tories the edge when it comes to wooing what has recently become one of the trickiest voter groups: farmers. Across Europe, farmers – furious at cumbersome green targets, rising costs and high taxes – are rebelling against their governments. The movement started five years ago when 2,000 farmers drove their tractors to The Hague to protest plans to reduce nitrogen emissions by closing livestock farms. They caused the worst traffic jam in the history of the Netherlands. The discontent spread to Germany, Romania, Poland and France. This month, thousands of farmers gathered in Brussels to hurl eggs at the European parliament and dump manure outside it.

British farmers haven’t joined the crusade – but it could happen yet. Protests have begun at Welsh Labour’s policy of making farmers plant trees in return for funding. In England, Sunak has so far managed to avoid a full-on revolt, but rural voters aren’t happy. A poll this month by the Country Land and Business Association (CLBA) suggests Labour has edged ahead in the country’s 100 most rural seats and would take 51 of them, were an election held tomorrow. Tory losers would include Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and former minister Jacob Rees-Mogg.

!function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r=0;r<e.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();

Sunak and Keir Starmer both believe they can win the rural vote. ‘There has been a big realisation that we need an offer,’ says one Tory MP in a rural seat. ‘We have to shore up that support in our heartlands if we’re to have any chance of a majority.’ When Labour has won big it has won over rural constituencies, as it did in 1997 and 2001. In 2019, when Labour suffered its worst defeat since 1935, the party only managed to win in two of the 124 rural constituencies in the UK: Hemsworth and North Durham. A Labour aide says: ‘2019 was disastrous. We do best when we have an offer on nature.’

Since Starmer took over as Labour leader, work has been under way to undo some of the damage of the Corbyn era. ‘When people say the party has changed, they cite anti-Semitism – but we’ve also had a big change on rural communities,’ says a Labour insider. Starmer’s initial pick for the environment brief, Jim McMahon, was stung by suggestions that he was a Mancunian urbanite who knew nothing about the countryside. He complained about ‘a snobbishness about where I live and where I was raised’ but was dropped in last September’s reshuffle. Starmer’s aides said he hadn’t done enough to reach out to rural voters.

Another city dweller succeeded him. Croydon North’s Steve Reed was handed the brief with the instruction that winning the rural vote is necessary to secure a majority. Reed has since criticised his party for projecting ‘a quite self-satisfied urban mindset’.

Labour MPs and aides are now regularly sighted at Countryside Alliance meetings. The party has U-turned on a pledge for a Scottish-style ‘right to roam’ order across England, in a bid to show rural communities their concerns are being heard. Last year, Starmer became the first Labour leader in history to write for Country Life. His offer to country folk is a ‘new deal’ to ease exports to the EU and a commitment to high standards, which takes aim at the Tories who spoke about importing hormone-injected beef. Labour strategists hope this plan could win votes in urban areas, too. Polling by the thinktank Labour Together (whose former director Morgan McSweeney is Starmer’s director of campaigns) found that when voters were asked why they feel proud to be British, 26 per cent cited the countryside. As polling day approaches, Sunak is in a rush to put Labour on the back foot. ‘If we lose these [rural] seats, that’s when you get to wipe-out territory,’ says a minister. Sunak’s urgency could be seen in his decision to move cabinet to Monday so he could speak at the National Farmers’ Union conference – the first time in 16 years that a prime minister has done so. ‘No. 10 have been obsessed with that speech,’ says a government aide.

!function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r=0;r<e.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();

The government is planning a series of measures ranging from increasing dentistry in remote communities to a new label system to promote homegrown food (although this idea is facing some cabinet resistance).

On farming, ministers argue the Trussite push for free trade deals has contributed to the anti-Tory backlash. Liz Truss’s allies previously dubbed her cabinet opponents on trade as ‘Waitrose protectionists’, but now Sunak is in charge, the balance has tipped back and several of those opponents – such as Michael Gove, the Levelling Up Secretary – are in senior roles. ‘Trade deals are not vote winners,’ says a government aide. It was Boris Johnson’s No. 10 that torpedoed talk of a US trade deal ahead of the 2019 election for these reasons.

There was glee in Tory circles this week when Reed used an interview to say Labour would eliminate all forms of fox hunting – including trail or drag hunting – within its first five years in power. While the policy polls well, it is seen as a typical town vs country divide which would place Labour on the side of the urbanites.

Most of all, the Tories spot an opportunity in Wales to put Labour on the defensive over its proposed scheme to replace EU subsidies, under which 10 per cent of land will be used for tree planting, in exchange for cash. With dozens of tractors and farm vehicles turning up at a Welsh leadership debate this month, the farmers’ march is beginning to gather pace. A poll by the CLBA found that just 3 per cent of farmers trust the Welsh government. It didn’t help Labour that First Minister Mark Drakeford blamed Brexit-voting farmers for the mess.

Starmer once said Wales was ‘a blueprint for what Labour can do across the United Kingdom’. He hasn’t repeated that recently.