Tally ho! That sound you can hear is Keir Starmer’s barmy army charging into the fray once more. Having waged war over the Chagos Islands, assisted dying and hereditary peers, now the Labour party has found another cause on which to burn precious political capital: trail hunting. This is the process whereby hounds following a scent-based trail rather than live animals, following the ban in the New Labour years. A decision that Tony Blair rued bitterly in his memoirs…
Ministers promised a consultation on trail hunting in early 2026, with an announcement expected this month. But opponents are not sitting on their hands, with a serious fundraising operation in the countryside now underway. Already £1 million has been raised, with a plan for millions more in the pot to fight for hunts and hounds. Ben Wallace, the former Defence Secretary, is now chairing a joint campaign involving the Countryside Alliance and the British Hound Sports Association. A warning shot before Christmas was fired when ministers unveiled their animal welfare strategy – only to end up with a massive backlash over the predominant focus on trail hunting. Starmer meanwhile ended up having to ditch much of his hated ‘family farms tax’…
A warning shot before Christmas was fired when ministers unveiled their animal welfare strategy.
Mr S wonders if the government really have the stomach for all this. One campaigner tells Steerpike that they are preparing for a ‘long and bitter battle’, noting that the Alliance boasts ‘plenty of sharp parliamentary operators’ and that there will ‘be no qualms about an active campaign in the countryside’ – ‘ministers can expect a warm welcome in the shires.’ Emma Reynolds, the Environment Secretary, sits in a fairly rural Buckinghamshire seat. Her team has so far been keen to stress that their intention is not to ban ‘all hunting’ – but the proof will be in drafting.
A note of caution was sounded last month by Baroness Hunter, Blair’s former chief of staff, who told the Lords that while she was ‘Hunter by name, but not by nature:’
I am from the countryside and remain so. I startled my community by giving up meat decades ago, having read an early, in-depth investigation into food production. Standards have been greatly raised since then, and I applaud the Government in taking these further steps. What plans do the Government have in these considerations to avoid being distracted from their priorities, and not repeating Sir Tony Blair’s admission, despite my best efforts, of being insensitive to countryside interests? What plans do they have to ensure swift consultation with the rural community on the economic impact on their livelihoods and what support can be provided in any transition?
There were hundreds of thousands on the streets last time. Does Sir Keir – who once boasted of rural communities being in his ‘DNA’ – fancy a repeat of all that again?
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