Get your priorities right, stand up for rural communities and drop the illiberal ban on trail hunting

Ladies and Gentlemen

Thank you for coming to London today for this opening meet of your summer hunting.

We're here in front of the office of Defra, and the reason we're here now is because tomorrow the consultation which the Government launched on banning trail hunting closes.

I can tell you that, thanks to you and thanks to the efforts of the Future for Hunting campaign, which is run jointly between the Countryside Alliance and the British Hound Sports Association, there have been over 70,000* responses to that consultation.  That is a majority of the responses which DEFRA has received, so most of the responses have been against this ban.

Now, this consultation is very revealing because it's not a consultation on whether there should be a ban.  The Government simply asserts that there should be one, with not a shred of evidence as to why.  Not a shred of evidence.

And we know that they've said this is all about saving foxes.  Well, I've got news for the Government: they banned hunting 20 years ago!  What do they think they're doing trying to re-run the ban that they already passed?

And when ministers pushed through that ban using the Parliament Act last time, when they made that fatal step, they stood at their dispatch boxes and they said: "You can all go trail hunting."

So we did.

And now, 20 years later, they're saying they want to ban trail hunting, too.

“What does it say about the Government’s priorities that they think this issue, of all issues, should be any kind of priority for them?”

Now they say, well, maybe you can go drag hunting – they're not sure.  Will they come back in 20 years' time and try and ban drag hunting as well?  That's the risk, isn't it?

Saying that they will ban trail hunting outright is like saying to someone who is speeding on the motorway that all cars will be banned.  It's completely disproportionate, it's not based on evidence, and it's totally illiberal.

And that's why we are going to fight this proposed ban.

20 years ago, when Tony Blair launched this assault on hunting, he at least had the sense not to widen that to a broader attack on the countryside.  But look what's happening now.  It's not just trail hunting in their sights, is it?  It's shooting.  They want to license game shooting as well.  And if you license something, that means banning it first.  They said they wouldn't, but that's what they've proposed.

It's greyhound racing as well.  They've banned greyhound racing in Wales.  The Nats want to ban it in Scotland.  No one's told them that there isn't any greyhound racing in Scotland.  It's absurd, performative politics, but that's what they want to do.

They're attacking horse racing with affordability checks that are taking hundreds of millions of pounds away from the nation's second most popular spectator sport.

We know that they've attacked farming already and had to back down on those proposals.  Well, they'll have to back down on these proposals too.

So here's a message to DEFRA, standing right in front of its offices:

You are the Department for Environment, [Food] and Rural Affairs.  Don't you think that you should actually be in favour of rural communities?  Don't you think that it's your job to stand up for rural communities, not to go after rural communities?

And what does it say about the Government's priorities that they think this issue, of all issues, should be any kind of priority for them?  Aren't there just a few other things going on at the moment?

If the Government wants to prosecute a war – the war that they're starting on the countryside – maybe they should help the Ukrainians fight a real war.  Maybe that's what the Government should be doing?

Maybe the Government has a few other things to sort out in rural areas too.  How about fixing the potholes?  How about fixing affordable housing?  How about fixing broadband?  We could go on with the list.  We've made the suggestions to them.

These are communities that are doing no harm and interfering with no one else.

And it's not just that you're doing no harm - think of all the good that's been done, all the people who are employed, all the hounds and horses that are kept going.  What will happen to them if it's not possible even to go out with horse and hounds because the law that's passed is so draconian?

And mark my words: whatever the Government comes up with, there will be a phalanx of Labour Members of Parliament and others, pushed into it by pressure groups, who will go a lot further.  It's exactly what happened last time.

So the Government is opening a Pandora's box, and if they have any sense, they will close it again.

Let me just say this, finally: this is the opening meet, and we've had other demonstrations in London before, haven't we?

And I'm reminded of the words of G.K. Chesterton in his famous poem The Secret People:

"Smile at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget,
For we are the people of England that never have spoken yet."

We are speaking now.  Listen to us.  Get your priorities right.  Stand up for rural communities and drop this ban.

* now nearly 87,000