Boxing Day: a time for gifts, shopping and fox hunting – traditionally on horse back, unless you’re Jolyon Maugham KC. These days of course, the actual hunt is nothing more than trail hunting, with hounds following a scent-based trail rather than live animals. But for some in Keir Starmer’s new-fangled Labour party, even that goes too far.
Jim McMahon, the baby-faced Shadow Environment Secretary, clearly smells an opportunity here. He is reported in the Guardian (where else?) as suggesting that trail hunting is little more than a ‘smokescreen’ for illegal activity and a loophole of the 2004 Hunting Act, which banned hunting wild mammals with dogs in England and Wales. As proof of this Labour point to figures which show that some 438 convictions for hunting have been secured since 2010. ‘Labour is the party of animal welfare,’ harrumphs McMahon ‘and in government we will go further to protect animal welfare by putting an end to trail hunting.’
Yet is the case really as clear cut as that? It’s worth noting that less than five to ten per cent of those convicted under the Hunting Act are estimated to actually involve registered hunts – the people Labour are actually targeting on Boxing Day. More than 90 per cent of offences are not associated with such hunts, with the vast bulk of offences relating to poaching or other casual hunting activities rather than at gatherings like the traditional Boxing Day meets.
The conviction rate moreover does suggest that the law is working with regards to prosecutions. This is despite the Hunting Act’s own limitations, with Daniel Greenberg – the barrister who drafted the legislation – admitting in today’s Telegraph that the ban was driven by ‘moral outrage’ rather than animal welfare. Greenberg added that he was ‘troubled’ by the law as it did not show enough respect to the ‘minority cultural opinions’ or traditions of those in the hunting community.
It’s perhaps worth reflecting too on some of the behaviour of hunt saboteurs too, with 39 year-old Alexandra Dennis being found guilty this month of attacking octogenarian Richard de Pelet. Asked for his own views, an exasperated Nick Herbert of the Countryside Alliance told Mr S that ‘Labour’s position is utterly illogical and the large number of prosecutions under the Hunting Act only shows that the legislation is perfectly effective’. The former Tory MP accused Labour of ‘drawing battle lines in the countryside when it should be trying to unite the country.’
Is Labour’s trail-hunting commitment nothing more than some red-meat for bolshie backbenchers? Or will it consume parliament for seven years like last time?
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