Political skulduggery and the Countryside Alliance

Guest op-ed by Fox in Parliament a political animal lobby in support of the hunting ban.

The BASC and the Countryside Alliance are already trying to influence the outcome of the election.

The blood sport lobbies, that is those who hunt animals for fun and also those who shoot animals for fun, are hard at work seeking to ensure that the candidates elected in 2015 will vote on the issues that they want to see enacted in Law.

They are not interested in another agenda, or that the general population of the UK is against hunting and shooting.

Democracy is not a word they care to entertain at any level. They are a single issue group and that one issue is to do with killing animals for the fun of it. All of the focus is about them and their being able to slaughter animals without censure or punishment of any kind. It’s all about their entertainment and nothing and no one else matters.

The British Association of Shooting and Conservation (BASC) and the Countryside Alliance have one advantage over animal organisations and lobbies like us. They have money, lots of it and it never seems to be in short supply. So they have the ability to be heard. They also have the pro-hunting media onside, who present a false image of the actual support for blood sports in the UK.

Pro-hunting press reports spin the numbers upwards of those who attend hunts. This is calculated, subliminal journalism, designed to give a false impression that hunting is a popular sport and should be supported by the population as a whole.

The reality is that the numbers who support hunting and shooting are tiny, but money talks and they get much more attention than they actually deserve.

It’s a safe bet that the members of these lobbies will vote, and encourage others to vote, for the political parties who’s MPs support blood sports; that is, the Tories and UKIP!

In the run up to the 2005 and 2010 elections much money was readily available to be spent on ensuring pro-blood sport candidates were elected as MPs. The scandal of Vote OK (another single issue lobby group) before the last election saw scores of pro-hunt sympathisers take to the streets delivering Tory leaflets. They were encouraged to pretend they were aides working for the Conservative party and they were under strict instructions not to talk about hunting, because they knew most people are repulsed by blood sports.

Hunt supporters were called to a meeting of election helpers in Henley in the run up to the election and were addressed by Mr Cameron himself, whose own election leaflets were posted by volunteers from his local Heythrop Hunt.

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Charles Mann, a leader of Vote OK, wrote in a leaked email about Henley: "All this effort will build towards repeal."

Similar emails were sent out to hunts to encourage their supporters to not give up hope and to work hard in support of MPs who in return promised to vote to repeal the hunting Act when the time was right to do so.

Robbie Marsland, of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said: "Vote OK foot-soldiers are acting like wolves in sheep's clothing.

Labour MP Phyllis Starkey said: "This is fundamentally dishonest and undermines democracy."

Despite all this, the hunting lobby is on the ropes and they know it. They have one last hope of repealing the hunting ban and that is if David Cameron is elected outright in 2015.

It’s not just hunting, the shooting lobby know that the heat is on, and the spotlight is beginning to shine on their nefarious activities too.  There is a growing sense of awareness of the cruelty of raising birds to be blasted from the sky for sport, and the activities ancillary to shooting which involve gamekeepers slaughtering countless mammals and birds of prey in order to protect the young game birds from predation.  Certainly the shooters are not too keen on Labour wining the next election, because they will be under scrutiny, and pressured into curtailing much of what they have been allowed to do unfettered in the past.

Nature is in trouble and every vote in the 2015 election counts.

Some people think why bother?  They say all the political parties are the same. Those people are completely wrong and that wrong view belittles the importance of democracy.  It is vital for our countryside and its wildlife that we use our vote to protect them. Our wildlife does not get a voice unless the public provides one for it.

If we care, then we dare not let UKIP or the Conservatives have a say in how our wildlife is treated. Too many of their candidates and MPs, and their leaders, Farage and Cameron, are wedded to mindless animal cruelty. Our wildlife deserves so much more than a political party pandering to a blood thirsty minority who get their fun killing animals.

We MUST move forward, and that means securing the hunting ban for the future.

Bringing in a two-year prison term for illegal hunting would be a good place to start. There is also forward thinking needed on banning snares, and protecting birds of prey from poisoning, shooting and the destruction of their eggs and nests. Farmers and landowners must be encouraged to do more to preserve animal habitats, and the activities of shooters must be curtailed. We cannot let the pro-shooting/hunting brigade off lightly; they cause too much suffering and also death of our precious wildlife. The idea that one can preserve a species by killing it must be exposed for the lie it is. It is nonsense that shooting estates cannot adapt and make money from other things.

For too long a minority have sought to make their blood-soaked activities appear wholesome, but it just won’t wash anymore.

Hunting and shooting may be traditional, but they are certainly not noble customs, and it is past time they were consigned to history where they belong. The time has come to speak the truth, and people who kill for sport must be shamed and shunned for their actions, and made to realise that they are nothing more than a minority group whose activities are a stain on the morality of a modern, civilised country.

In short, they simply won’t be tolerated, no matter what the excuse. Blood sports of any kind have no place in the UK today, or anywhere else for that matter.

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