By any measure, Labour has gone stark raving mad. Not satisfied with wrecking the economy, hiking taxes and running public services into the ground, these clowns have found a new way to parade their ignorance: plotting to wreak havoc on the countryside by banning the vital, time-honoured practice of winter burning.
Yep, you heard it right. A Labour front bench who probably couldn’t tell one end of a pair of wellies from the other now think they can lecture Britain’s gamekeepers, farmers and landowners on how to manage the countryside they’ve cared for for centuries. It’s like asking a vegan barista to run a butcher’s shop.
A Tinderbox Policy
Winter burning is not some barbaric tradition, it is a proven management technique that reduces fuel for wildfires, creates firebreaks, and protects moorland habitats. By thinning out older vegetation, it encourages new growth, feeds the birds, and even supports the moss that builds peat in the first place.
But Labour, in their champagne socialist wisdom, have decided they know better. They want to lower the threshold for what counts as “deep peat” and extend bans across 368,000 hectares. The result? Vast swathes of upland Britain turned into a giant box of matches, waiting for the spark.
Richard Bailey, of the Peak District Moorland Group, is blunt: these plans risk turning the uplands into a “massive tinderbox.” He’s right. We’ve already seen what happens when ideology trumps common sense: Saddleworth Moor in 2018, Marsden Moor this year, Scotland’s biggest ever blazes in the Cairngorms. When controlled burns were stopped, uncontrolled infernos took over.
Andrew Gilruth of the Moorland Association nailed it: “Britain is burning because of the religion of rewilding… it makes for bigger, more intense blazes which can move at frightening speed.”
A Government of Clowns
This is what happens when policy is written by a clique of Islington dinner-party conservationists who think a weekend in the Cotswolds makes them experts in land management. They have no feel for the soil, no memory of the land, and no respect for the communities that live with its dangers.
Adrian Blackmore of the Countryside Alliance summed it up: “They are showing a staggering lack of understanding or knowledge.” Quite. Yet here we are, with ministers peddling eco-dogma while ignoring the firefighters, gamekeepers, and locals who actually know how to keep the countryside safe.
The Real Cost of Rewilding Religion
This year has already seen a record number of wildfires, costing taxpayers millions, wrecking habitats for endangered birds, and endangering lives. But instead of listening to those on the ground, Defra ploughs on with its ideological obsession.
John Clarke of the National Gamekeepers’ Association warns this will “spell disaster” and he’s not exaggerating. Many upland areas simply cannot be cut or mowed. Without burning, they’ll become impenetrable fuel dumps for the next mega-fire.
And here’s the final insult: when wildfires inevitably rage, gamekeepers, who for years have thrown themselves into the line of danger to help put them out, are warning they may refuse. Why risk their lives when government ties them in bureaucratic knots and criminalises their expertise?
Britain Deserves Better
Let’s be clear. Protecting peatlands matters. Reducing carbon emissions matters. But Labour’s approach is neither green nor safe, it is reckless, ideological, and ignorant. Controlled burning isn’t the enemy of the environment: it’s the ally that keeps Britain’s uplands alive.
Instead, this government of Labour lanyard wearing clowns prefers grandstanding gestures. They talk about “rewetting” the moors while preparing to watch them go up in smoke. They lecture about climate change while sowing the seeds of climate-driven catastrophe.
Britain deserves better than champagne socialists in red rosettes pretending to be guardians of the land. We need leaders who understand that the countryside is not a playground for London eco-lobbyists, it is a living, working landscape that needs practical, not ideological, management.
Until then, Labour’s rewilding mania will leave our uplands vulnerable, our wildlife endangered, and our firefighters facing infernos too big to fight.
Labour aren’t saving the countryside. They’re turning it into kindling.
By Claire Bullivant
