Hunt protests ‘about class hatred not animal welfare’

THE anti-hunting lobby is about the “hatred of people” not preventing cruelty to animals, the president of the Countryside Alliance warned yesterday.

Ann Mallalieu QC said that a “traditional and slightly odd” country pursuit had been turned into a national political issue by a small group of fanatics.

Baroness Mallalieu said the ban on the sport was “fairly ludicrous wherever you are viewing it from”.

The Labour peer spoke out as around 300 hunting groups met up and down the country for the traditional Boxing Day hunt.

It is the most popular day for riders to take to their horses, despite a ban in 2004 on allowing dogs to kill foxes.

Lady Mallalieu said: “The antihunting movement is not really about the welfare of animals. It is about a hatred of people. There can be no logical justification for such a ridiculous law, so what was the real motivation for the ban?

“If that was not already obvious, the admission of one MP as soon as the law was passed was that it was ‘class war’.

“And the subsequent continuing campaigns against hunts that are no longer hunting foxes can leave only one conclusion.

“The anti-hunting 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.”

Hunting returned to the headlines during the snap general election in June when Theresa May promised a free vote on repealing the ban. But she failed to win a parliamentary majority at the ballot box.

On Sunday it was reported that the Prime Minister will now abandon her manifesto pledge. However, a Downing Street source described this report as “pure speculation”.

The source added: “There is no vote that could change the current policy on fox hunting scheduled in this session of Parliament.”

Lady Mallalieu has said the issue of hunting masked more pressing issues facing the countryside such as the pressure on green belt land from a growing demand for housing.

She said the controversy surrounding hunting came from pressure groups skilled in social media.