Is Activism Undermining How We See Our Countryside?

A recent report from Leicester University’s Centre for Hate Studies claims that the English countryside is a “racist redoubt” where minority visitors feel unwelcome. The report, written by the same academics behind the National Trust’s highly controversial slavery and colonialism review, demands that rural traditions be reinterpreted through the lens of “racial justice”. But as Andrew Tettenborn points out in The Spectator, this activist approach misses the real essence of the countryside: its continuity, rooted communities, and respect for history. To recast rural England as just another “cosmopolitan landscape” is to strip it of the very qualities that make it unique and cherished. Our heritage deserves protection from such distortions.