Anti-hunting movement ‘is about the hatred of people’

THE anti-hunting lobby is about a “hatred of people”, not preventing cruelty, the president of the Countryside Alliance warns today.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Baroness Mallalieu says banning the traditional Boxing Day sport is about class, as animal rights experts have accepted that hunting is not cruel. It follows reports that Theresa May has shelved plans for a vote in the House of Commons on the future of hunting, after her manifesto pledge to allow MPS the chance to repeal the ban.

But the Conservatives are split over the issue and Labour is strongly opposed, with both sides anxious to support animal rights causes to win young voters. Baroness Mallalieu writes: “Hunting is not a ‘controversial’ activity among those who live and work in the countryside. Some like it, some don’t, but the idea that this traditional activity should have become a national political issue is fairly ludicrous.

“The fact that somewhere in the 20th century, the eradication of hunts and the 40,000-odd people who follow them became, in the words of a leading Labour politician, ‘totemic to the Labour Party’ is utterly bizarre. The antihunting movement is not really about the welfare of animals, it is about a hatred of people, and so it continues its obsessive pursuit of hunts.” She has called for a vote in the Commons to refocus the countryside lobby on Brexit, which she warns could have a damaging effect on rural communities.