As Labour pushes to strengthen the Hunting Ban the Blair Government imposed in 2004, the barrister who drafted the legislation has admitted it had little to do with animal welfare. MailOnline has more.
Daniel Greenberg, who drafted the Hunting Act 2004, is reportedly “troubled” by the ban and argues it is “ineffective” because it was introduced for moral reasons.
Mr. Greenberg told the Daily Telegraph the law is an example of “unfinished business” and does not respect the “minority cultural opinions” or traditions of the hunting community.
The barrister’s remarks come as more than 200 packs get ready for traditional Boxing Day hunts. The parades, which were previously disrupted by Covid restrictions, are going ahead in full today for the first time in three years.
More than 430 convictions under the Hunting Act have been secured over a decade, figures reveal amid demands to strengthen the law.
Mr. Greenberg, who has spent 20 years of drafting legislation as Parliamentary Counsel, has now revealed that drafting the hunting ban made him uncomfortable.
He said it was “troubling” that the law was “driven more by a moral outrage angle than animal welfare”.
“As a result of the way that the Act came out, I think that there is unfinished business and that includes aiming to maximise the animal welfare impact and also to consider the respect of minority cultural values and moral opinions,” he said.
“The difference between a parliamentary democracy and a parliamentary dictatorship is the respect shown to minority opinions and rights.”
Mr. Greenberg, who next month will take up a new role as Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, has warned that Parliament must be “very careful” before it moves to ban hunting, as the Labour Party has recommitted to closing “loopholes” in the law.
The party claimed trail hunting, where a scent is laid for hounds to follow, is being used as a “smokescreen” for the illegal hunting of foxes.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: The League Against Cruel Sports is urging Labour to close the “loophole” in the Hunting Act, arguing that the 438 convictions for hunting that have been secured since 2010 proves it is still widespread. But as Nick Herbert of the Countryside Alliance points out in the Spectator, the large number of prosecutions under the Hunting Act shows that the legislation is effective and doesn’t need to be revisited.
Stop Press: An 82 year-old aristocrat was beaten over the head and knocked to the ground by a hunt saboteur and left bleeding and disorientated. His sin? He was observing a melee between hunt participants and sabs, not participating in one himself, and had picked up a video camera he found on the ground and asked who it belonged to. MailOnline has more.
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Opposition to hunting is either politically motivated or factually ignorant.
The Burns report that led to the hunting act was chaired by an individual who knew little about hunting and ignored the most recent information available. The tyranny of the majority couldn’t even ensure that the hunting act was passed without an entirely inappropriate use of the parliament act to force this profoundly silly piece of legislation through.
Blair, whose wife instigated this cruel act, later admitted, in his dreadful book ‘A journey’, that it was a mistake.
In France, under a proportional voting democratic system, the countryside has its own party and a significant minority of support.
Obstructing hunting in France can land you with a Euro 30K fine and a year in jail.
Allez France!
I don’t really like fox hunting very much.
But I do regard the ban as being an attack on British traditional culture. This is odd given the steps taken to encourage non-British traditional culture in the UK.
Indeed.
I don’t like Morris dancing or football very much, struggle to tell the difference, but I do not think that they should be banned…..
You know none of the other ways a wild animal can die (famine, disease etc) make very nice photographs either?
No… of course you do. In fact this last 2 years have shown us that we don’t make a very good show at ensuring a good death even for our own species, once they’re safely out of the way in care homes.
It doesn’t say alot for a hunter gatherer species when they ban something that totally aligns to our instincts.
I’m not really getting what he means by moral outrage, as opposed to animal welfare. If he had said class reasons I would have understood.
It’s worth pointing out that very few of the 438 convictions secured under the Hunting Act were of people connected with registered packs of hounds. Most were for offences which would more accurately be described as poaching; the Merseyside Police seem to have been particularly keen on using the Act in this way.
Of course it was Class War.
No Government, or animal welfare obsessive, could possibly claim to be concerned about animal welfare when they support the installation of thousands of rare bird and bat slaughtering windmills.
Or do nothing about halal slaughter methods.
The hunting ban is all about jealousy, not animal welfare. It’s about having a pop at the country toffs, though most are ordinary decent people. Anyway, too many cars on the roads now for it to be safe for horses.