How do the Conservatives bounce back from the worst sets of election defeats in a generation? Double down on their core brand, remember what they stand for, and innovate in their areas of core strength. One of these areas is agriculture, and there’s never been more demand for it. Just this week, the Farmers for Action Group has called on the Chancellor to prioritise food security for investment — but the Labour Party seems more focused on taxing farmers into oblivion than finding innovative solutions to help them grow. Reform UK has set a 70 per cent domestic food production target in its manifesto — but wants to achieve this by scrapping sustainability subsidies, which risks bringing us out of alignment with the EU, our largest and closest trading partner in a crisis. Net Zero is a policy currently being re-shaped, but climate remains a concern for UK voters, as well as European ones — and unlike the USA, Britain is not a market unto itself. We rely on our European partners, and some of our greatest agricultural innovations have come from drawing closer to the continent, rather than pulling away.
Enter Lincolnshire, one of the UK’s largest agricultural producers, the site of England’s original agricultural revolution — when Dutch engineers brought over by William of Orange following the Glorious Revolution of 1688 helped to drain the fens, creating acres of flat, arable land. Today, Lincolnshire is responsible for 10-12 per cent of England’s agricultural output, worth some £1.8 billion to the UK economy. The contribution of agriculture to Lincolnshire’s economy was around £623 per resident in 2016 (the last year for which data is available) — the highest of all areas in the UK, where the national average is £144 per person. 81 per cent of Lincolnshire is farmland — compared with 39 per cent for England. Lincolnshire produces most of what a country needs to eat in a crisis, including potatoes, wheat, cereal, and poultry, and is responsible for processing some 70 per cent of UK fish. The University of Lincoln is currently home to Europe’s largest agri-robotics group, funded by the UKRI Expanding Excellence in England Fund. Ravesby Estate in Lincolnshire is trialling four Digital Technology Farms, established by agronomy firm Agrii, rolling out changes which could save £24,000 a year across the whole winter wheat area. If there is one place to test business-minded agricultural conservatism, Lincolnshire is it — and winning back Boston and Skegness from Reform is the place to start.
Lincolnshire is a county comprised almost entirely of former Conservative safe seats — two of these have been lost — one to Labour (Lincoln) and another to Reform (Boston and Skegness). In 2024 Reform parachuted in Richard Tice to stand for Boston and Skegness once the election had already been called, where he narrowly beat One-Nation-Tory Matt Warman, with a Reform majority of just over 2000 in what was previously a 25,000-majority Conservative safe seat, surrounded by Conservative safe seats. Two other Lincolnshire constituencies had Reform as the closest runner-up in 2024, while four were under threat from Labour. The 2025 May local elections saw Reform’s Andrea Jenkyns secure a resounding victory to become Greater Lincolnshire’s first elected mayor, as well as taking overall control of the council: 44 of the 70 seats.
Despite this, the Conservatives are not going to win in 2029 by copying other parties, but by rediscovering how they can best serve their base, staying true to their own ideals in a world where everything is changing. The party lost in 2024 because it became disconnected from the land, from prosperity and self-sufficiency, from supporting small businesses and small landowners over financialised capital, and rentier landlords — the very mistake which always leads to the rise of populists who are strong on rhetoric but weak on government. The strain of financialised capital and bourgeois managerialism within the Conservative Party comes from its Whiggish heritage, and ever since Thatcher, it has dominated the Party’s rhetoric. To maintain balance, the Conservatives must now look to their Tory roots — and to the voters who are attached to the land.
Lincolnshire was for many years England’s forgotten county — and its Conservatives are the kind of voters the Party takes for granted at its own risk. In the Brexit referendum, it was one of England’s most eurosceptic counties, with more than 75 per cent of Boston residents voting to leave, partly as a reaction to the EU’s agricultural policy and the influx of Eastern European labourers who came to work on Lincolnshire’s farms. Ten years on, many Boston residents might be regretting their vote, knowing that Brexit failed to stop the wave of immigration the voters were concerned about — instead of agricultural labourers from Eastern Europe contributing to the UK economy, the constituency now faces an influx of asylum seekers, being housed at the cost of the UK taxpayer in Skegness hotels. It was the failure of the Conservative party to communicate the issues around the Brexit referendum which caused this — but where 20 years ago low-cost agricultural labour was an asset to the farmer, today it is automation which guarantees the biggest profits. Investing in automating UK farming will help the Conservatives appeal to their base, small business owners, landowners, and farmers, who have increasingly felt betrayed as the party leaned towards the super-wealthy and cosmopolitan.
The party needs to blend the pro-business Whiggish strain of Conservatism with its landed Tory heritage
Here’s the problem — in its agricultural aspect — and what we need to fix. A 2025 report by Tim Lang, formerly professor of food policy at City St. George’s, University of London, has stated that “there is too much complacency about UK food security and civil food resilience barely features at all in forward planning.” A new conservatism must double down on reinvesting the resources generated from free trade in services into those vital resources which must be physically proximate to their region of consumption. Steel — in an era of escalating global threats — is one of these, but its image and identity is core to Labour. Food is another, but unlike steel, agriculture is at the core of the Conservative brand.
The UK currently imports some 40 per cent of the food it consumes — compared with countries like Italy or France, which import less than 30 per cent of their food, this is not a strong result. France, the largest agricultural producer in the EU, currently ranked 4th in the Global Food Security Index, has a self-sufficiency rating of about 76 per cent. Reform UK is correct to say that Britain should be aiming for 70 per cent self-sufficiency. At the last election, the Conservatives pledged a £20 million Farming Innovation Fund — and should now be setting much more ambitious targets. In 15 years of government the Conservatives failed to come up with a system of post-Brexit farming policies to compensate for the loss of £3 billion in EU subsidies available under the Common Agricultural Policy — now is the time to correct by blending the pro-business Whiggish strain of Conservatism with its landed Tory heritage to develop new mechanisms and incentives to make farming more profitable as a business venture.
Fish and chips — the meal which fed the workers who powered Britain’s industrial revolution — is a meal whose ingredients could easily be sourced in the UK, and its security is just as important as that of the steel supply chain. Labour’s protectionism in nationalising the steel plant at Scunthorpe — a necessary step for the moment — is too detached from the private sector to be innovative in the long-term, and Reform’s protectionism would isolate us from the standards of our closest trading partners. To win in 2029, the Conservatives must stop looking to copy others, and remember who they are at their best — the party which balances the interests of the city trader and the shopkeeper — the farmer on his smallholding and the large landowner — those who are, and those who aspire to become. Those who deal with what they see in front of them — and those who speculate with a view to growth. Under Cameron, the Party leant too heavily on the latter — under Johnson, too heavily on the former. The Leader who wishes to secure victory in 2029 must learn to master both — and putting food on the table is how we begin.
