Events are now moving very fast. By this time next week, the Bill to ban hunting will have received royal assent. The fight to halt this oppressive piece of legislation is moving away from Parliament, into the courts and, probably, on to the streets.
The government is preparing with great care for the looming battle. According to trustworthy accounts from rural communities, the police have already started work setting up a network of informers. They are offering cash. I know of one huntsman who was visited by a police officer and offered ‘a formal arrangement so that you won’t need to cover any expenses’. There is plenty of evidence that approaches like these are being made all over the country.
Meanwhile, the government has stealthily assumed extra power so that it can extirpate hunting when the time comes. The Civil Contingencies Bill, which gives ministers the ability to act outside the law to confront ‘emergencies’, is ostensibly designed to confront the terrorist threat. But it has been carefully drafted so that its most sinister provisions can also be used to target huntsmen. From this point of view, the relevant part of the Bill is clause 22, which grants sweeping competences to prevent the ‘disruption or destruction of plant life or animal life’. Once this legislation is in force, ministers will have unlimited powers at their disposal — including the right to break up meetings, seize property and prohibit movement along public roads — for use against country people as well as al-Qa’eda terrorists.
But the government is not merely preparing the way for what may turn out to be a violent confrontation with rural communities. Ministers have worked hard at winning their case by dividing the bloodsports lobby.
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