Within its claim to introduce the “biggest boost to animal welfare in a generation” this weekend, Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has allegedly promised to outlaw trail hunting, leading to widespread criticism.
After Tony Blair’s government enforced the Hunting Act in February 2005, hunts across the UK sought to retain their sense of community and infrastructure through trail hunting – a form of the sport that is entirely compliant with the new law.
Trail hunting, for those unfamiliar, involves the laying of a scent across the countryside which riders (on horseback or on foot) follow a manufactured scent along a pre-determined trail with hounds and/or beagles. This replicates a traditional hunt but without foxes being chased or killed – despite the relentless campaigns of disinformation championed by deceitful hunt saboteurs.
Simon Wild (West Sussex Hunt sabs) says to the BBC the Crawley & Horsham Hunt (CHH) have "changed out of all proportion" and are "like a show hunt for the rest of the country" for their engagement in trail hunting. Meanwhile, the West Sussex Hunt sabs Facebook page continues to contradict Mr Wild's claims.
Even Tony Blair came to deeply regret enforcing the 2004 Hunting Act, which he describes in his memoirs as “one of the domestic legislative measures I most regret.”
Only last December, it further transpired that Blair had been under immense pressure from animal rights activists to see the ban through.
Lord Mandelson made it public knowledge in December 2023 that animal rights campaigner Brian Davies, who founded the International Fund for Animal Welfare, had given the Labour Party a £1 million donation in 1996, one year before Blair’s first tenure as Prime Minister.
Mandelson himself said in an interview with Times Radio back in December: “And we got into a difficult situation where frankly we went a little bit too far – further than Blair wanted – in making this commitment in our manifesto. It was, frankly, under not duress but under some sort of pressure.”
“It wasn’t attractive and it’s not been repeated,” he continued.
Keir Starmer’s Labour appear close to repeating this same mistake.
However, the Labour Party needs to clarify its message to Britain’s rural population after shadow environment secretary Steve Reed claimed last week that Labour has wrongly pitted “city against village” in the past and promised rural communities that people from urban areas, such as himself, would not tell them how to “live their lives” if Labour enters No 10 in July.
While Labour’s policy details remain, for the moment, minimal and are not yet in the public domain, singer and campaigner Will Young offered freely his public support to the party as it prepared to unveil the plans under its animal welfare initiatives.
Unsurprisingly, the announcement has sparked criticism.
Countryside Alliance chief executive Tim Bonner said: “Labour’s continuing obsession with hunting shows that the party hasn’t changed. This new attack on trail hunting is pointless, prejudiced, and will fan the flames of an ugly culture war.”
Blair’s regretful 2004 Hunting Act, which banned traditional fox hunting, has already seen hunting wild mammals with dogs made illegal in England and Wales. Hundreds have already been convicted of the offence.
“There is no logical justification for a new law. It is utterly bizarre that Labour is now seeking to ban the activity that it told people they should be doing after it banned traditional hunting in 2005,” continued Mr Bonner.
Labour insists it wants to help rural communities after they have been abandoned by a Conservative Government.
However, the Countryside Alliance believes Labour’s hunting plans risk destroying a “critical part of the rural community.”
Mr Bonner said: “Hunts bind together people in some of the most remote and isolated areas of the countryside. They play a really important role as a social hub. The end of hunting would be devastating to many people.”
Labour’s manifesto is expected to be released this Thursday.