Hunting ban is an attack on civil liberties, says Gray
The Shadow Minister for Rural Affairs, James Gray, has told a fringe meeting at the Conservative Party conference that a Conservative government would reverse any ban on hunting.
The long-running saga over a hunting ban – on which a free vote was promised in Labour’s 1997 election manifesto – seemed to be drawing to an end after the House of Commons voted in September to ban hunting with dogs. The Bill will now go to the Lords, who have frustrated previous ban attempts, but the Government will have the option of using the Parliament Act to push the legislation through.
Pro-hunt protestors have become increasingly vocal since the vote on the ban, with a large-scale demonstration outside Parliament during the Bill’s debate, protests outside ministers’ homes and official engagements, and the dumping of dead animals at last week’s Labour conference.
Though the Countryside Alliance has distanced itself from the extremes of protestors’ behaviour, they share the view that a ban on hunting has nothing to do with science and is instead an attack on civil liberties, and have threatened to challenge the legislation in court.
Speaking on Tuesday lunchtime at the Countryside Alliance-hosted meeting, Mr Gray described those who passed the Bill as “illiberal, ignorant and prejudiced”, saying that the issue was no longer over fox hunting but was more about human behaviour.
He insisted that the legislation was to stop a minority group from doing something because another minority group wanted them to.
Mr Gray received loud applause when he promised that the Conservatives would repeal the Bill if in power.
Turning to the details of the Bill, Mr Gray claimed it was unworkable, and that the manner in which the Bill passed the House of Commons was unconstitutional, insisting that there was no time for discussion and therefore no time for informed debate.
But in a moment of levity, he remarked that the bill banned hunting with dogs not with bitches so as long as the pack was made entirely of bitches then they would not be breaking the law.
Mr Gray then turned serious again, claiming that the Government patently did not care about the 8,000 families that would lose their livelihoods as a result of the ban. He suggested this was evidenced by the attitude the Government had of “Well, you shut down all the steel works”.
He insisted the Government knew nothing and cared less over rural issues and described Rural Affairs Minister Alun Michael as a “nasty repugnant little man”, claiming that the issue was now was about class hatred and party politics and not the welfare of foxes.
