The Coalition Government is to hold a free vote on overturning the ban on fox hunting introduced by Labour in 2004. Conservative backbenchers have been eager to lift the ban, which had been a pet hate of rural tories for the decade it has been in force. Last week, the Liberal Democrats vetoed a proposed amendment to the Hunting Act that would have permitted farmers to use more than two dogs at a time to “flush” prey out of the undergrowth to aid efficient shooting.
However, there is hope for proponents of animal rights: David Cameron has indicated that the free vote (it is likely that Labour MPs will also be free to vote as they like on the issue) will be held “when parliamentary time allows”. This means that it isn’t a priority, likely to drop off the timetable as the Coalition rushes through as much of its remaining programme as it can, just in case Labour wins next year. The other hope lies in the numbers in Parliament. Very few Labour MPs, largely representing urban or working class constituencies, will have any interest in allowing the rural aristocracy to slaughter animals for entertainment. The Liberal Democrats, for all their flaws, have a decent record in defending animal rights. Add to that the nationalists, the Greens and some of the progressive wing of the Conservative Party, and there is a clear majority against the Hunting Act amendment in the House of Commons. Of course, if the Conservatives were to win a respectable majority in next year’s election (mercifully unlikely), no fox in England would be safe.
In the modern world, there is very little justification for hunting. For the overwhelming majority of people, who live in societies supported by agriculture, there is no need to hunt for food. However much ethical grounds there might be in choosing to hunt for food, there is no merit in hunting as it is practiced in the UK. That generally consists of murdering a few wild animals merely for the sake of killing them. It is the height of selfishness to extinguish a life, including an animals’, just to gain some violence-based transient pleasure. I wonder if anybody can hunt for sport without having a major emotional issue such that they don’t care about other living things enough.
I don’t care what supposed cultural heritage English hunters claim: we have another streak in our culture, one we term “fair play”. It means we don’t use violence against the weak. Though England and Britain as a whole has often failed to live up to this, particularly in our dealings with other countries, Britain has a proud, albeit patchy, tradition of caring for domestic and wild animals. To live up to that, we should be extending the Hunting Act, not retracting it.
