The Support Hunting Association is one of the UK's most prominent pro-hunting organisations, now incorporating issues related to Game Shooting, Fox Hunting and Angling.
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WWW Supportfoxhunting.co.uk
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Have you seen these pages?
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Police View of a hunting ban - Two chief constables voice their concern on a ban on hunting.
Timelines -On the current Hunting Bill, the attempts to ban hunting, and on the ban in Scotland.
Hunting vs. Human Rights - Parliament has advised that the Hunting Bill is incompatible with the Human Rights Act.
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Quotes
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The ban has guaranteed that the time and money invested by the League Against Cruel Sports and the RSPCA has increased animal suffering. We told them this would happen. This rise in suffering since the ban is the cost of ignoring that warning!
Daily Telegraph
3 May 2005.
Numerous police officers accompanied the more than 250 hunts which took place yesterday, the first day that the sport became illegal. Despite the friendly exchanges between officers and huntsmen and women, the presence of the police posed a question: what public good were they trying to uphold?
Daily Telegraph
20 February 2005.
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Lord Burns
"Naturally, people ask whether we were implying that hunting is cruel... The short answer to that question is no. There was not sufficient verifiable evidence or data safely to reach views about cruelty."
Lord Burns
Chairman of the Inquiry into hunting with dogs.
House of Lords, 12 March 2001.
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News Section
All the latest news is now on the News Page, although featured articles will still on this page. Click the arrow for the News Section. |
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STOP PRESS article:
� June 5th 2008: Labour and the countryside
Stories in the News Section include:
� 02.12.06: National Trust may relax hunt regulations
� 07.11.06: The banned rode on
� 04.11.06: Hunters mark beginning of season
� 01.11.06: Mike Hobday gets Labour party vote
� 30.10.06: Countryside Alliance: Hunting continues to grow
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Boxing Day Hunts 2006
320,000 people took part in Boxing Day hunts
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Campaigners claim 320,000 people took part in traditional Boxing Day hunt meets, saying the ban is unworkable.
Hailing the strength of the Boxing Day turn-out as a success, campaigners for a repeal of the fox hunting law said the numbers who had attended meetings showed the ban was unworkable in England and Wales.
Charlotte Fiander, spokesman for the Countryside Alliance said supporters regarded the legislation as an "unenforceable" law.
"Even the police don't seem to know what they're trying to uphold," she said.
"Everybody seems to be generally confused as to what's going on."
Countryside Alliance: Boxing day meets: �the sooner such a bad law is scrapped the better�
27 December 2006. Read the full article.
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The official 10 Downing Street website has launched a new section allowing people to create and sign petitions which will be sent to the Prime Minister.
The Second most popular petition by signature numbers is:
"Repeal the Hunting Act 2004" with 15934 signatures. There are 2 petitions calling for a repeal.
The anti-hunting lobby are less united and there are a total of 11 petitions against repealing the act, or supporting the strengthening of it. Total number of signatories across all 11 petitions? A measly 274 signatures.
Keeep signing in support of a repeal of the Hunting Act 2004 at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/huntingactrepeal/
(Figures correct as of 14.12.06)
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The week 19-25 November saw a number of articles, letters and admissions printed in the Independent Newspaper. Read them below:
Articles:
Letters
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Kate Hoey: I praise gun pack for service it is providing to farmers
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Photograph courtesy
Countryside Alliance |
Interview: My Party right or wrong is not a maxim to which Kate Hoey, the Labour MP for the inner London constituency of Vauxhall, subscribes.
She voted against government policy on war in Iraq, foundation hospitals, university tuition and top-up fees, ID cards and extended detention without trial.
She was also one of the small number of Labour MPs who opposed a ban on hunting, but it still came as a surprise when an MP from the heart of the big city was elected to chair the Countryside Alliance.
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Hunting Ban Challenge: 4 July 2006:
Countryside Alliance appeal to Lords
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4 July 2006: The Countryside Alliance is refusing to give up the fight to overturn the controversial ban on hunting
After the Appeal Court last week rejected a challenge to the Hunting Act under Human Rights and European Law, Alliance chief executive Simon Hart said the organisation would now apply for its case to be heard by the House of Lords and, if necessary, by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
...[Last week, the] three appeal judges upheld the High Court ruling that the hunt ban was lawful, did not breach human rights and did not infringe EU trading and employment laws.
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Observer Comment : Nick Cohen
Labour's fatuous war against the countryside has been an abject failure
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26th February 2006: Yesterday, about 300 hunts were roaming Britain. If you saw one, you may have wondered if parliament truly had banned hunting with dogs a year ago. Almost everything would have looked as it had always done. Perhaps a few of the hunters would have set off early to lay a trail and one of them could have been carrying a falcon. But the riders would still have charged over the fields and their dogs would still have chased any fox that crossed their path.
The anti-hunting law that aroused so much passion is now producing contempt and indifference. Only one hunt has closed and hunters behave as if the 700 hours of parliamentary debate that preceded the ban was so much wasted breath. Those of us who weren't caught up by the passions of either side are seeing the obvious flaw in the legislation work itself out.
Observer Comment: Labour's fatuous war against the countryside has been an abject failure
26 February 2006. Read the full article.
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League Against Cruel Sports: The Truth
Former chief officer Graham Sirl speaks frankly about why he changed his views on hunting
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 17th February 2006: Former chief officer of the League Against Cruel Sports Graham Sirl speaks frankly to Horse&Hound about life with LACS and why he changed his views on hunting
"LACS has achieved nothing — they've had their opportunity and hunting with hounds will never, ever be banned in this country,” says Graham Sirl emphatically.
After 20 years campaigning against hunting, In 2001 - two months after an acrimonious departure from LACS - Sirl wrote a letter to the local press stating that a hunting ban would do nothing for animal welfare. In the footsteps of former LACS chief executives Richard Course and Jim Barrington, he had displayed a dramatic U-turn after years of what he describes as “boring people stupid about LACS and the campaign 24/7”.
“I think hunting offers a balance in the countryside — if I could see it being done effectively as a management tool, I'd be happy,” he says. “I was a Labour party member until five years ago, but I lost faith.
Also See
Also See
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Hunting Act 2005: Legal challenges
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Latest on the challenges
13th March 2006, ongoing...
The Human Rights challenge reached the Court of Appeal, after being rejected by the High Court last year.
13th October 2005
Countryside campaigners lost their latest bid to overturn the ban on hunting with dogs, after nine Law Lords unanimously ruled it would remain.
29th July 2004
The Countryside Alliance lost their High Court challenge to the Hunting Act. The Countryside Alliance tried to use European human rights laws to overturn the ban in England and Wales, but two senior judges ruled against them, and that the Hunting Act is compatible with the Human Rights Act.
9 February
In February, the Countryside Alliance tried to argue that the Parliament Act which was used to force through the ban was itself invalid. That challenge was rejected by the High Court and Court of Appeal and they have appealed to the House of Lords.
Basic Guide to the challenges
The Countryside Alliance has so far challenged the legality of the Hunting Act - passed last year - on two grounds. The first relates to the way the Hunting Bill was passed, using the Parliament Act, and whether this is a valid way of passing a law. The second is under the Human Rights Act 1998 and claims that the Hunting Act breaches the European convention on human rights, and EU employment and trading laws.
Parliament Act challenge
The Hunting Act became law last year after MPs used the Parliament Act 1949 to force the bill to become law, even after the House of Lords voted against it. The Parliament Act limits the powers of the House of Lords to hold up legislation, 'against the will of the House of Commons'. The Countryside Alliance has argued that the Hunting Act is invalid because it never gained support from both houses of Parliament.
Click here for more.
Human Rights challenge
The second legal battle consists of the compatibility of the Hunting Act with the Human Rights Act passed in 1998. Under this, any legislation restricting what people do on private property must be justifiable in terms of the public interest. It also claims the act puts people of of jobs and breaks EU employment and trading laws.
Click here for more.
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Hunting Act: Reduced the suffering?
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Hunt ban 'has caused rise in fox suffering' (Daily Telegraph, 3rd May 2005)
The ban on hunting with hounds has increased the suffering of foxes as more are shot and wounded, according to research published this month.The study, which appeared in the May issue of Animal Welfare, the journal of the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare, undermines claims by the RSPCA and League Against Cruel Sports that hunting, until it was banned, caused more suffering than shooting.
Click here for the full story.
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Timelines: Bans in Scotland and England & Wales
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Scottish Ban
Timeline of the Scottish ban - In 2001 the Scottish Parliament banned hunting with dogs - find out how the bill became law.
Click here to view.
England & Wales and general attempts to ban hunting
Timeline of the attempts to ban hunting - There have been many attempts to ban hunting - all by Labour MP's - find out more here.
Click here to view.
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Hunting Ban: Party Politics?
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Its not just conservative lords who vote against the hunting bill...
80% of Labour peers failed to support Government's Hunting Bill
Only 40 Labour peers, 20% of the total, supported the Government's Hunting Bill during Tuesday 21st October's Committee Stage in the House of Commons.
In the vote to reinstate the Government's original licensing system into the Bill, which was amended to ban all hunting in the Commons, the other 156 Labour peers either backed the amendment or abstained.
The licensing amendment was passed by 261 votes to 49. Discounting those hereditary peers who voted the amendment would still have been carried by a majority of 147.
Click here to read more. (External Link, CA Website)
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