PM May: I back fox hunting
PM admits Mirror is right and confesses she backs cruel fox hunting
THERESA May supports fox hunting and wants MPs to lift the ban, she told the Mirror.
I get to decide when I take the bins out, not if I take them PHILIP MAY ON HOME LIFE WITH THE PRIME MINISTER
THERESA May yesterday confessed she wants to bring back fox hunting – after the Mirror exposed a secret Tory plot to repeal the ban.
And the PM admitted she will hold a free vote for MPs if she wins the election.
Speaking to our reporter in Leeds, she said: “I have always been in favour of fox hunting and we maintain our commitment to allow a free vote. It would allow Parliament the opportunity to take a decision on it.”
But Jeremy Corbyn blasted: “It’s a warped sense of priorities when Theresa May thinks the return of fox hunting is something the majority of people would support.” He added: “I opposed it as a teenager and am proud to have voted against it in Parliament. I’ll do everything I can to prevent the return of this so-called sport to Britain.” The Mirror yesterday told how hunt masters are “mobilising” support on behalf of Mrs May, believing a Tory landslide will give her the majority to repeal BIG CHANCE Lord Mancroft sent email
the 2004 ban. David Cameron promised a vote on repealing it his 2010 and 2015 election manifestos but never delivered.
He didn’t have a large enough majority in the Commons to be sure of success, as a small group of animal-loving Tory MPs are opposed to bringing back fox hunting.
But in a leaked email published in yesterday’s Mirror, the Council of Hunting Associations said it believes the free vote can be won, and the Hunting Act repealed, if Mrs May wins by a landslide.
CHA chairman and Tory peer Lord Mancroft wrote in the email: “A majority of 50 or more would give us a real opportunity for repeal of the Hunting Act.”
But some of the new Tory intake of MPs could also be anti fox hunting – meaning it is impossible to predict at this stage whether Mrs May’s plan will succeed.
Animal rights campaigners praised the Mirror for exposing the plot and begged would-be MPs to make a stand.
League Against Cruel Sports chief Eduardo Goncalves said: “Many thanks to the Mirror for revealing details of this plot to bring back hunting.”
Polls last year showed 84% of the public, and 72% of Conservative voters, backed the ban on hunting with hounds.
Mr Goncalves added: “This smacks of a small minority with a cruel hobby wielding an inappropriately large influ-m ence over the people in charge. Are we really going to turn the clock back to a time when killing animals for fun was legal?”
And RSPCA chief David Bowles added: “Fox hunting is a barbaric and brutal practice that has no place in civilised society.”
Shadow Environment Secretary Sue Hayman promised Labour would fight lifting the ban. She added: “The Conservatives are using the issue to distract from a neglect and lack of vision for rural communities.”
The League Against Cruel Sports today calls for a ban on grouse shooting, the hiking of maximum sentences for animal cruelty to five years, and for Britain to lead a global fight against big-game trophy hunts.