Shadow Defra minister Robbie Moore says 'Conservatives have taken the rural vote for granted for too long'

Mr Moore was previously a minister in the Department of the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs, and is now the only shadow frontbencher behind Steve Barclay.

Speaking at Conservative Rural Forum fringe at the Tory party conference in Birmingham, Mr Moore said his time in Defra had been “difficult”.

Citing the consequences of Brexit, including signing a number of international trade deals, he said it had been “the biggest transitional shift” in agricultural policy in a generation.

“I never thought, having been elected in 2019, that we would have three Prime Ministers in that period of time,” Mr Moore said.

“Not least, and I’ve not even got the figure, how many secretaries of state Defra has had in that period of time.”

He said he wants “to try and get to grips as to why we did not do as well in the rural areas as we should have done”.

Across the UK, the Conservatives went from holding 118 of the 134 most rural seats to just 56 after the last election.

In Yorkshire, the Tories lost seats like Ossett and Denby Dale, Colne Valley and Shipley to Labour.

Farmers said they turned away from the Conservatives as they felt undercut by post-Brexit trade deals to Australia and New Zealand.

Mr Moore blamed “the chop and change at a ministerial level and secretary of state level” for a “vision that is not consistent”.

He said: “It also creates a lack of feeling of being loved by the rural community, whatever sector, whichever part of the rural community you work on.”

The former minister explained he felt that “consistently for too long the focus has been, quite rightly, on the environment, but not enough focus on food security, food resilience or rural affairs”.

The quartet of candidates for the Tory leadership will be giving speeches today in the main conference hall in Birmingham.

Mr Moore said he had not declared who he was supporting “because I really want to push the four remaining candidates on rural policy”.

He added: “I want to make sure they are in the position of properly being able to earn the vote, the rural vote, and make sure we use, as MPs, our opportunity up until November to really stress test their thinking on rural policy, farming policy.

“We have got time to make sure that when we come back into government … that we actually have a consistent policy agenda that deals with the rural economy, that gets buy-in from rural economy businesses, farmers, rural communities.”