Countryside Alliance

  Three members of the College Valley and North Northumberland Foxhounds were charged under the Hunting Act. Two Masters—former champion jockey Ian McKie and Timothy Smalley—along with kennel huntsman Andrew Proe are accused of hunting illegally on February 27, 2014. Charges are based on evidence furnished by the League Against Cruel Sports (LACS) and investigations by police. The defendants pleaded not guilty at their July 17 court appearance and will stand trial on October 13. A spokesman for the Countryside Alliance expressed confidence that the men would be exonerated, as was the only other defendant—Percy Foxhounds huntsman Robert McCarthy—to be charged under the act in that jurisdiction back in 2009. Click for more details in Michael Brown’s article in The Journal. Posted August 2, 2014  

  Like Fagin, the RSPCA is reviewing the situation. With income from donations having cratered by seven million pounds last year, the RSPCA is cutting jobs and restructuring. Donor disaffection is surely due, at least in part, to enormous sums spent by the Society in prosecuting foxhunters under the Hunting Act for very little return. The RSPCA was widely criticised in 2012 by the press and even by judges of the courts after it spent more than three hundred thousand pounds prosecuting the Heythrop hunt. In 2013 the charity was estimated to have spent at least a half million pounds of charitable funds on prosecutions against hunts, seventy-eight percent of which failed. RSPCA Chairman Mike Tomlinson is quoted as saying “things cannot carry on as they are” after the charity suffered a “£6.1m net cash outflow” last year. It will now prioritise its front-line animal welfare work, he reportedly told a journalist. The Countryside Alliance has reported that RSPCA CEO Gavin Grant resigned in February 2014, followed by his deputy, John Grounds, in April. Click for more details. Posted July 7, 2014  

Stung by criticism of the staggering amount of money—£326,000—spent to prosecute the Heythrop hunt for violations of the Hunting Act, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) is attempting to repair relations with the British countryside. (See earlier, related FHL article.) The Society has proposed the establishment of a new self-regulating hunting association—an independent trial and drag hunt association—that would open the country to riders and hounds following drag lines, or laid scents. Sir Barney White-Spunner, executive chairman of the Countryside Alliance, responded, “We are quite happy to talk to the RSPCA in the interests of animal welfare when they drop their increasingly radical and politicised animal rights agenda.” White-Spunner’s response was interesting in that it articulates a distinction which eludes many people: that animal welfare and animal rights are two very different philosophies. While animal welfare strives to care for all animals with compassion and enhance the well-being of all species, animal rights seeks to end man’s dominion over animals and endow them with the same rights as humans. Click to read Stuart Winter’s complete article in The Express. Posted July 22, 2013

The Countryside Alliance believes that there would be sufficient votes in Commons to overturn the hunting ban, but for the votes of the Scottish Labour MPs. The government is being urged to reform the system which gives Scottish MPs veto rights on legislation that has no impact in Scotland. Tim Bonner of the Countryside Alliance said, “[T]here are a lot of people in the Westcountry who simply cannot understand why the Hunting Act cannot be repealed when a majority of English and Welsh MPs support getting rid of it. “MPs from the Westcountry have no say on hunting laws in Scotland, so why should Scottish MPs hold a veto over repealing the pointless and wasteful Hunting Act in England and Wales? “The continuing interference of Scottish Labour MPs also underlines the fact that the Hunting Act has nothing to do with animal welfare or wildlife management, but is a prejudiced, political attack on the hunting community.” The Countryside Alliance predicts that a vote in Commons to overturn the ban would prevail by thirty to forty votes if taken only by English and Welsh MPs. Click for more details in This Is Cornwall. Posted January 15, 2013

Boxing Day, traditionally the best-attended day of the hunting season in England, will bring large fields and throngs of hunt supporters to the meets, but no solace in their dreams of repealing the despised Hunting Act of 2005. Prime Minister David Cameron’s campaign pledge to bring the matter to a vote in Parliament notwithstanding, such a move is not in the offing according to Environment Secretary Owen Paterson, a hunt supporter himself. The Huffington Post, UK quotes the cabinet minister as saying, “There’s only a point having a vote if you’re going to win.” A recent poll found, in fact, that seventy-six percent of the population are against legalizing foxhunting, despite a concerted pro-hunting campaign by the Countryside Alliance. With nearly all hunts planning to ride on Boxing Day, The Telegraph estimates that more than one million people will attend at least three hundred meets. As a comparison, there are more than twice the number of hunts in England as in the U.S. According to The Guardian, the Countryside Alliance reports more hunt followers today than in 2005 when the ban became law, as well as an increased sense of support from local countryside communities. One third of all hunts claim to have more members and supporters than before the ban, and the great majority of hunts are hunting just as much. Barney White-Spunner, executive chairman of the Countryside Alliance, said, “The Hunting Act was an attack on rural people rather than an attempt to improve animal welfare, which is why it has failed so spectacularly.” He said that in the uplands the Hunting Act has made it nearly impossible for farmers to control the fox population and protect their livestock. Meanwhile, the League Against Cruel Sports has pledged to intensify its campaign against illegal hunting by recruiting more hunt monitors—many of them ex-police officers. Posted December 26, 2012

That’s the view of Barney White-Spunner, Executive Chairman of the Countryside Alliance. “Hunting remains in good heart…and support is strong,” he wrote in the Alliance’s latest newsletter. After seven years under the law, White-Spunner claims that eighty-six percent of all hunts in England have the same number or more members and most feel higher or at least the same local support as before. The Act failed spectacularly, he said, because it was more of an attack on rural people than an attempt to improve animal welfare. Although members of the Crawley and Horsham Foxhounds were found guilty recently under the Act and were fined, statistics since the Act’s passage show few convictions and much police time wasted. “A damning indictment of the expensive and failed Hunting Act,” said Alice Barnard, chief executive of the Countryside Alliance. The Act’s history has reinvigorated calls from pro-hunters to scrap the “pointless” legislation. Read a more detailed review in Kimberley Middleton’s article in The Argus. Posted November 19, 2012

Notwithstanding the Prime Minister’s promise of a free vote in Parliament on the repeal of the Hunting Bill, the issue has been eclipsed by the more pressing problems of the British economy. Despite Countryside Alliance head Alice Barnard’s recent statements urging that Prime Minister David Cameron “right a great wrong” by overturning the ban, the Alliance has decided against making the repeal a priority issue at this time. One has to wonder if concern over the economy is just a smoke screen for backing away from the fight to repeal. The Telegraph states “that only a minority of MPs—253 out of 650—are committed to repealing the Act with at least 22 Conservative MPs among more than 300 who would vote against repealing the law.” Even amongst Tories—the constituency most strongly supportive of hunting—support for repeal is dwindling. For more details, read Andrew Hough’s article.

Alice Barnard, 33, has taken over the reins of Britain’s Countryside Alliance. She is not only the first woman to lead the organization that boasts a membership of 100,000, but the youngest to do so. In a recent interview, Barnard urged Prime Minister Cameron to make good on his promise to hold a free vote within this Parliament and before the next general election on the repeal of the despised 2004 Hunting Act. “The Act just hasn’t worked,” she said. She went on to say that it wasn’t based on evidence, but rather on a class attack by those trying to punish the toffs. “But hunting has never been about that,” she said. As we already noted in an earlier FHL article, former Prime Minister Tony Blair in his recent memoir expressed regret at having pushed for the passage of the Hunting Act during his term. “Blair got it all wrong,” said Barnard, referring to Blair’s turn-about, “and it is just a shame that he didn’t have his Damascan moment at the right time.” Barnard is a rider since childhood and a former Master of the Cambridge University Drag Hunt, a foot pack of bloodhounds. She gave up a successful and well-paid career in corporate sales to take over her new post. See Rosa Prince’s article in the Telegraph for more.October 6, 2010