Labour wants to destroy the traditions that bind rural people together
SIR – In the 1980s and 1990s, my father was the Conservative deputy leader, and later leader, on Derbyshire County Council – then the most Marxist in the country.
He instilled into me that one of the rules of communism was: “Suburbanise the countryside and you have the country where you want it – because country people have to think for themselves.”
This is what Labour’s attack on hunting (Leading Article, February 20) has always been about: undermining and destroying the traditional things that bind rural people of all backgrounds together. It has nothing to do with cute, furry animals. Timothy Morgan-owen
Melbourne, Derbyshire
SIR – The only policies that Sir Keir Starmer has confirmed are a ban on fox hunting and adding VAT to private education.
Jeremy Corbyn must be so proud. Graham Butler
Loughton, Essex
SIR – You describe the Hunting Act 2004 as “bad for the rural economy and a waste of police resources” (Leading Article, February 20).
This is true, but there is another crucial point. The Act was designed to improve wild-animal welfare, and it is on those terms that it should be judged. We now know that the law has been a disaster for the quarry species. Since 2021, Jim Barrington – a former director of the League Against Cruel Sports – and I have spent some 60 days in the field interviewing people at the sharp end of countryside management to assess the impact of the ban.
Foxes are now being killed in greater numbers, often using methods that lead to more suffering, not less. Restrictions that limit stag hunts to the use of two hounds mean many fewer casualty deer – such as animals hit by cars – are being found and dispatched. Greater concentrations of deer as a result of the Act have led to a rise in bovine tuberculosis. The ban also led to an increase in illegal hare coursing.
You conclude that the Hunting Act “is not going to be repealed and is settled”. But surely bad law needs to be repealed. Now that we have definitive proof that the Hunting Act has been a disaster for wild-animal welfare, it should be replaced.
Instead of banning trail hunting and persecuting the innocent, as it intends, the Labour Party should take an evidence-based approach and consider restoring hunting with hounds for the sake of the hunted species. Charlie Pye-smith
London SW19
SIR – With a general election imminent, Labour’s plan to “eliminate” fox hunting shows the party’s priorities.
Sir Keir Starmer is attempting to appease the militant Left of his party, at the expense of many rural communities. Though Labour’s core voters are concentrated in urban centres, the party must not neglect rural people.
If, as is widely expected, Labour wins a majority at the next election, Sir
Keir must represent the whole country, supporting the livelihoods of people in all walks of life. He must work with rural communities rather than against them. Hunting is an integral part of rural life, and these communities have had to adapt significantly after the ban. If Labour presses forward with its plans, outlawing trail hunting, it will ultimately kill off a vital social and economic aspect of country life.
At a time when rural poverty is getting significantly worse, Sir Keir must drop his blatant class-war rhetoric or risk further alienating the already struggling rural world. Caspar Bridge
Sherborne, Dorset
SIR – I’ve voted Labour all my adult life and was a local branch secretary for a while, but I haven’t the faintest idea of what it stands for now – apart from being “decisive”. Michael Heaton
Warminster, Wiltshire