Ten years ago today, Tony Blair’s ban on hunting with dogs came into force. Rural communities had marched, Otis Ferry had stormed the Commons, but none of it made any difference, and anti-hunt campaigners rejoiced when hunting became a banned sport.
But though the law has been in place for a decade, the fight for hunting still goes on. Many hunts, especially those based in more urban areas, are still plagued by hunt saboteurs, as was demonstrated just last month when Mike Lane, a Master of the Tedworth Hunt in Wiltshire, was attacked so savagely by saboteurs wielding iron bars that he was knocked out. The Countryside Alliance are now calling for it to be made easier for the police to order people to remove face coverings – whether those people be saboteurs or hunt supporters.
Meanwhile, the League Against Cruel Sports seem to have hardened their stance on hunting. Their director of campaigns – a chap called Michael Stephenson, previously political advisor to the shadow Defra secretary, Maria Eagle – told BBC’s Countryfile on Sunday that in his opinion even trail hunting – in which there is no quarry, but a scent laid by trail layers – ‘is wrong’, and should be banned. The problem, he claimed ‘is not the law’, but people who flout it, and argued that the welfare of the fox has been improved since the ban. ‘Would you like to see hunts vanishing?’, he was asked. ‘Yes’, came the reply.
The thing is, neither side of the debate seem to think that the current law is working, with the Countryside Alliance having branded it a ‘waste of time and money’ (their campaigns director Tim Bonner explains why on Coffee House today).
So what next? It’s expected that the Conservatives will include a commitment to a vote on repealing the Act in their election manifesto, with Defra’s Liz Truss claiming that she is ‘absolutely committed to repealing the Hunting Act’. Meanwhile, Labour’s Maria Eagle today made it clear that defending the hunting act would be one of their priorities, together with ending the badger cull which is being used to try and stop the spread of Bovine TB, and ‘reduc[ing] animal cruelty on shooting estates’ – whatever that may mean. Hunting may be largely irrelevant as an electoral issue – but it still manages to ignite strong opinions, on both sides of the argument.
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