Britain as a place of “warm ale, (with) a black Labrador by your feet in a pub” is a “far-right fantasy that never really existed”. That is the verdict of Labour’s nature minister Jenny Riddell-Carpenter.

At a fringe event at Labour conference in Liverpool, Riddell-Carpenter warned attendees that the so-called “far-right” will try to weaponise rural Britain at the next election. The MP for Suffolk Coastal – that’s right, rural Suffolk – said she lies “awake at night” at what “nostalgic vision” of the countryside will be used in the supposed battle. “This is one of the things I do stay awake at night about, and think about, and fear.”

Riddell-Carpenter warned that the “far-right” will try to weaponise rural Britain

Riddell-Carpenter warned that the “far-right” will try to weaponise rural Britain

Let us leave aside that Riddell-Carpenter is the Defra minister with responsibility for rural communities, tasked with understanding, sympathising with and fighting for precisely this way of life. What does it say about her, and indeed about the Labour party’s mindset, that this is how they think?

Indeed, how does this happen? Brought up in rural Suffolk, Riddell-Carpenter has made her local roots and rural authenticity a part of her political identity. Did SOAS, where she studied History and Politics, followed by a master’s........

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