Politics
The last act of a desperate Prime Minister — to bring back the Hunting Bill
There are complications. Last year’s Bill fell foul of human rights law, meaning that new provisions are required to compensate those who lose their jobs from the ban. But only an unchanged Bill can go back to the Lords under Parliament Act rules. There are ways round this problem. The government could introduce a compensation Bill alongside the original banning Bill. Or it could bring in an entirely new Bill, wait for it to grind to a halt in the Lords, then use the Parliament Act to railroad it through both Houses during the next session of Parliament, starting this November. Either way, hunting would be banned by the start of 2005.
Some Labour strategists see tremendous advantages in this course of action. It would galvanise Labour activists and MPs, many of whom are obsessed with hunting. The inevitable struggle with the House of Lords, allied to loud, angry protests from country folk, would inject an entirely spurious but for all that welcome sense of old-fashioned radicalism into Tony Blair’s administration. Very little political will would be needed to push the measure through. Indeed, the Prime Minister needs political will to fend it off. Nevertheless a Bill to ban hunting this summer would inflame and divide the country at a time when Tony Blair speaks of the need for unity. It would mark a return to ugly, intolerant, class-based legislation. Very shortly before he died, Roy Jenkins told the Prime Minister that he ‘could not conceive a more illiberal act’ than banning fox-hunting. They were pretty well the last words he ever uttered to Tony Blair, and perhaps they still echo in his ears.
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