The Support Hunting Association is one
of the UK's most prominent pro-hunting organisations, now incorporating
issues related to Game Shooting, Fox Hunting and Angling.
About Us
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Full Contents
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menus below contain the full contents of the site.
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Have you seen these
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| Police View
of a hunting ban - Two chief constables voice their concern on
a ban on hunting.
Timelines -On the current Hunting
Bill, the attempts to ban hunting, and on the ban in Scotland.
Hunting vs. Human
Rights - Parliament has advised that the Hunting Bill is incompatible
with the Human Rights Act. |
Quotes
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The ban has guaranteed that the time and money invested by the League
Against Cruel Sports and the RSPCA has increased animal suffering.
We told them this would happen. This rise in suffering since the ban
is the cost of ignoring that warning!
Daily Telegraph
3 May 2005.
Numerous police officers accompanied the more than 250 hunts which
took place yesterday, the first day that the sport became illegal.
Despite the friendly exchanges between officers and huntsmen and women,
the presence of the police posed a question: what public good were
they trying to uphold?
Daily Telegraph
20 February 2005.
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| Front Page |
Lord Burns
"Naturally, people ask whether we were implying that hunting
is cruel... The short answer to that question is no. There was not
sufficient verifiable evidence or data safely to reach views about
cruelty."
Lord Burns
Chairman of the Inquiry into hunting with dogs.
House of Lords, 12 March 2001.
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News Section
All
the latest news is now on the News Page, although featured articles
will still on this page. Click the arrow for the News Section. |
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STOP PRESS article:
· June 5th 2008: Labour and the countryside
Stories
in the News Section include:
· 02.12.06: National Trust may relax hunt regulations
· 07.11.06: The banned rode on
· 04.11.06: Hunters mark beginning of season
· 01.11.06: Mike Hobday gets Labour party vote
· 30.10.06: Countryside Alliance: Hunting continues to grow
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Boxing
Day Hunts 2006
320,000 people
took part in Boxing Day hunts
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Campaigners claim 320,000 people took part in traditional Boxing Day hunt meets, saying the ban is unworkable.Hailing the strength of the Boxing Day turn-out as a success, campaigners for a repeal of the fox hunting law said the numbers who had attended meetings showed the ban was unworkable in England and Wales.
Charlotte Fiander, spokesman for the Countryside Alliance said supporters regarded the legislation as an "unenforceable" law.
"Even the police don't seem to know what they're trying to uphold," she said.
"Everybody seems to be generally confused as to what's going on."
Countryside Alliance: Boxing day meets: ‘the sooner such a bad law is scrapped the better’
27 December 2006. Read
the full article. |
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The official 10 Downing Street website
has launched a new section allowing people to create and sign petitions
which will be sent to the Prime Minister.
The Second most popular petition by signature numbers is:
"Repeal the Hunting Act 2004" with 15934
signatures. There are 2 petitions calling for a repeal.
The anti-hunting lobby are less united and there are a total of 11
petitions against repealing the act, or supporting
the strengthening of it. Total number of signatories across all 11
petitions? A measly 274 signatures.
Keeep signing in support of a repeal of the Hunting Act 2004 at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/huntingactrepeal/
(Figures correct as of 14.12.06) |
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| The week 19-25 November
saw a number of articles, letters and admissions printed in the Independent
Newspaper. Read them below:
Articles:
Letters
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Kate
Hoey: I
praise gun pack for service it is providing to farmers
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Photograph courtesy
Countryside Alliance |
Interview:
My Party right or wrong is not a maxim to which
Kate Hoey, the Labour MP for the inner London constituency of Vauxhall,
subscribes.
She voted against government policy on war in Iraq, foundation hospitals, university tuition and top-up fees, ID cards and extended detention without trial.
She was also one of the small number of Labour MPs who opposed a ban on hunting, but it still came as a surprise when an MP from the heart of the big city was elected to chair the Countryside Alliance.
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Hunting
Ban Challenge: 4 July 2006:
Countryside
Alliance appeal to Lords
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| 4 July 2006:
The Countryside Alliance is refusing to give up the fight to overturn
the controversial ban on hunting
After the Appeal Court last week rejected a challenge to the Hunting
Act under Human Rights and European Law, Alliance chief executive
Simon Hart said the organisation would now apply for its case to be
heard by the House of Lords and, if necessary, by the European Court
of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
...[Last week, the] three appeal judges upheld the High Court ruling
that the hunt ban was lawful, did not breach human rights and did
not infringe EU trading and employment laws.
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Observer
Comment : Nick Cohen
Labour's fatuous war against the countryside has been an abject failure
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26th February 2006:
Yesterday, about 300 hunts were roaming Britain. If you saw one, you
may have wondered if parliament truly had banned hunting with dogs
a year ago. Almost everything would have looked as it had always done.
Perhaps a few of the hunters would have set off early to lay a trail
and one of them could have been carrying a falcon. But the riders
would still have charged over the fields and their dogs would still
have chased any fox that crossed their path.
The anti-hunting law that aroused so much passion is now producing
contempt and indifference. Only one hunt has closed and hunters behave
as if the 700 hours of parliamentary debate that preceded the ban
was so much wasted breath. Those of us who weren't caught up by the
passions of either side are seeing the obvious flaw in the legislation
work itself out.
Observer Comment:
Labour's fatuous war against the countryside has been an abject
failure
26 February 2006. Read
the full article. |
League
Against Cruel Sports: The Truth
Former chief officer Graham Sirl speaks frankly about why he changed
his views on hunting
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17th February 2006: Former chief officer of the League
Against Cruel Sports Graham Sirl speaks frankly to Horse&Hound
about life with LACS and why he changed his views on hunting
"LACS has achieved nothing — they've had their opportunity
and hunting with hounds will never, ever be banned in this country,”
says Graham Sirl emphatically.
After 20 years campaigning against hunting, In 2001 - two months after
an acrimonious departure from LACS - Sirl wrote a letter to the local
press stating that a hunting ban would do nothing for animal welfare.
In the footsteps of former LACS chief executives Richard Course and
Jim Barrington, he had displayed a dramatic U-turn after years of
what he describes as “boring people stupid about LACS and the
campaign 24/7”.
“I think hunting offers a balance in the countryside —
if I could see it being done effectively as a management tool, I'd
be happy,” he says. “I was a Labour party member until
five years ago, but I lost faith.
Also See
Also See
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Hunting
Act 2005:
Legal challenges
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Latest
on the challenges
13th March 2006, ongoing...
The Human Rights challenge reached the Court of Appeal, after being
rejected by the High Court last year.
13th October 2005
Countryside campaigners lost their latest bid to overturn the ban
on hunting with dogs, after nine Law Lords unanimously ruled it would
remain.
29th July 2004
The Countryside Alliance lost their High Court challenge to the Hunting
Act. The Countryside Alliance tried to use European human rights laws
to overturn the ban in England and Wales, but two senior judges ruled
against them, and that the Hunting Act is compatible with the Human
Rights Act.
9 February
In February, the Countryside Alliance tried to argue that the Parliament
Act which was used to force through the ban was itself invalid. That
challenge was rejected by the High Court and Court of Appeal and they
have appealed to the House of Lords.
Basic
Guide to the challenges
The Countryside Alliance has so far challenged the legality of the
Hunting Act - passed last year - on two grounds. The first relates
to the way the Hunting Bill was passed, using the Parliament Act,
and whether this is a valid way of passing a law. The second is under
the Human Rights Act 1998 and claims that the Hunting Act breaches
the European convention on human rights, and EU employment and trading
laws.
Parliament
Act challenge
The Hunting Act became law last year after MPs used the Parliament
Act 1949 to force the bill to become law, even after the House of
Lords voted against it. The Parliament Act limits the powers of the
House of Lords to hold up legislation, 'against the will of the House
of Commons'. The Countryside Alliance has argued that the Hunting
Act is invalid because it never gained support from both houses of
Parliament.
Click here for
more.
Human Rights challenge
The second legal battle consists of the compatibility of the Hunting
Act with the Human Rights Act passed in 1998. Under this, any legislation
restricting what people do on private property must be justifiable
in terms of the public interest. It also claims the act puts people
of of jobs and breaks EU employment and trading laws.
Click here for
more. |
Hunting
Act:
Reduced the suffering?
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Hunt
ban 'has caused rise in fox suffering' (Daily Telegraph,
3rd May 2005)
The ban on hunting with hounds has increased the suffering of foxes
as more are shot and wounded, according to research published this
month.The study, which appeared in the May issue of Animal Welfare,
the journal of the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare, undermines
claims by the RSPCA and League Against Cruel Sports that hunting,
until it was banned, caused more suffering than shooting.
Click here for the
full story. |
Timelines:
Bans in Scotland and England & Wales
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Scottish
Ban
Timeline of the Scottish ban - In 2001 the Scottish Parliament banned
hunting with dogs - find out how the bill became law.
Click
here to view.
England & Wales and general
attempts to ban hunting
Timeline of the attempts to ban hunting - There have been many attempts
to ban hunting - all by Labour MP's - find out more here.
Click here to view. |
Hunting
Ban: Party Politics?
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Its
not just conservative lords who vote against the hunting bill...
80% of Labour peers failed to support Government's Hunting Bill
Only 40 Labour peers, 20% of the total, supported the Government's
Hunting Bill during Tuesday 21st October's Committee Stage in the
House of Commons.
In the vote to reinstate the Government's original licensing system
into the Bill, which was amended to ban all hunting in the Commons,
the other 156 Labour peers either backed the amendment or abstained.
The licensing amendment was passed by 261 votes to 49. Discounting
those hereditary peers who voted the amendment would still have been
carried by a majority of 147.
Click
here to read more. (External Link, CA Website) |
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