British MPs Vote for Total Ban on Hunting

[Mil Novecientos Once]

It seems that the antis in Brittain have won a major batle. I hope that this news won't be read by the antis in USA. Hopefully the House of Lords will drop it.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=3015347

British MPs Vote for Total Ban on Hunting
Mon June 30, 2003 06:16 PM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain moved a step closer toward ending its long tradition of hunting Monday when members of parliament voted overwhelming for a total ban on the ancient countryside sport.
The vote, by 362 to 154, came after the government dramatically withdrew a compromise plan which would have allowed some forms of hunting to continue.

The government's bill now passes to the upper chamber of parliament, the House of Lords, where it is likely to face stiff opposition.

The government had wanted a compromise solution involving bringing in strict licenses to allow some hunts to continue. Ministers had said the compromise amendment was the only realistic way of banning most hunts.

But many Labor members of parliament took a harder line and accused the government of trying to stifle their views.

After a stormy five and a half hour debate, Rural Affairs Minister Alun Michael announced the government was withdrawing its proposed amendment, paving the way for the vote for the outright ban.

The result was greeted by jeers and celebrating from supporters and opponents of hunting in Parliament Square, outside the House of Commons.

 

[Bruce in West Oz]

I'm pretty sure you'll find that by "hunting" the British refer to "hunting with hounds" on horseback, dressed in pinks and yelling "yoiks" and "tally ho" and so on.

Hunting by rifle, which they call "coarse hunting" or something like that, is not affected by this.

 

[Byron Quick]

Yep, riding after foxes with hounds.

Basically, this is political class warfare in Britain. Labor would really rather open concentration camps...just doesn't quite have the power or the guts to do so yet.

 

[KC]

I know a couple of people from the UK.
One is/was a raving socialist who is barely able to form a coherent arguement, but has gainful employment in the public education system.

The other was shocked that it isnt necessary to get permits to buy firearms or ammo in this country, and wants to get some .303 so he can shoot my Enfield. (Which was, of course, made in England, and is now illegal to posess in private hands it it's native country....) The second guy doesn't like the cost of living out here, but he is also happy to be *from* England.

KC

 

[agricola]

a lee enfield is not illegal in the UK - you just need a s1 licence (ie: what you used to have your handgun on) to own one.

this just affects hunting with dogs. seeing as i dont recall the CA kicking up much of a fuss when the mining / steelworking / engineering / fishing communities died i must say seeing all the toffs moaning about the death of the countryside does fill me with a deep sense of pleasure. The CA and the various hunting groups cared not a jot for the above communities, nor indeed do they ever address the low pay and conditions that country workers (99% of which have nothing to do with hunting with hounds) suffer, largely at their hands. They also ignore the massive underinvestment and removal of services (post offices etc) from the countryside in favour of this one issue that probably 1% of the marchers last year are involved in.

byron, your political analysis is up there with al-Sahaf's military analysis

 

[Byron Quick]

Wow, agricola! Do you think I've got a shot to work for Al-Jazeera or the BBC?

Socialists have a tendency to kill folks in job lots if history is any guide at all.
They seem to usually prefer concentration camps that have no dedicated death apparatus...just work the inmates to death.

The Labor Party is socialist, is it not?

Who invented concentration camps?

Appears to be a possible trend to me.

Perhaps, instead of stating: political class warfare...it would have been more accurate to state: politicized class warfare.

 

[agricola]

atm the Labour Party is anything but socialist

 

[Marko Kloos]

byron, your political analysis is up there with al-Sahaf's military analysis

I think he's right on the mark. Fox hunting has always been an upper-class sport, so naturally it has little support within Labour and its constituents.

atm the Labour Party is anything but socialist

Come off it, agricola. Labour is a member organization of the Socialist International. They even refer to themselves as socialist, on their own web site:

http://www.labour.org.uk/sistersocialistpartiesineurope/

Clause 4 of the Labour Party constitution:

"The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few. Where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe. And where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect."

 

[DaveB]

The 'ban' refers to fox hunting with dogs. The object is to let the dogs catch the fox and tear him apart. Fun, eh... And Manly.

Would it do any good to bend the discussion around to the 'merits' of fox hunting with dogs?

This is not purely a class warfare issue.

db

 

[KMKeller]

atm the Labour Party is anything but socialist

?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Come again? I assume then, that you're a member of the labour party Ag? That kind of idiotic denial only comes from closet insiders.

 

[Byron Quick]

Friend, I once owned and rode horses...and there's a fox hunt near by. And I "coarse" hunt every chance I get. Never rode with the hounds. Never will.

But the tactics used against the foxhunters in Britain are actually quite sickening.

In the end, a law must be enforced. Enforced is an apt term...force.

If my neighbour does not obey a specific law then he will be arrested by an armed force acting as my agents. If he resists arrest then he will be subjected to the force necessary to obtain his surrender. Up to and including lethal force.

Therefore, my test of whether a proposed law is just, necessary, and a proper arena for government is: If Joe, my next door neighbor, refuses to abide by this law and refuses to submit to arrest for that lack...do I wish to see a policeman-acting as my agent- blow his head off?


Turns out that few laws pass my test. A foxhunting ban isn't one that does.

Now, on the other hand, if you wish to publish the names of foxhunters and organize a boycott of them which refuses to be employed by them, employ them, sell to them, buy from them, refuse them aid and comfort, or to hold any discourse with them whatsoever...you could probably easily convince me to do so. But convince me to turn the power of the state...force...against them? Never.

agricola,
You stated that the Labour Party is not socialist. As lendringser's link to the Labour Party's website plainly demonstrates...the Labour Party explicitly states that it is a socialist party. My question is this: Is the Labour Party sufficiently divorced from reality that it does not know it is not socialist, as you stated, or just lying?

 

[agricola]

byron,

the policies that the current Labour party favour - privatisation of various utilities (most notably the London Underground), the further privatisation of the NHS, the mania for the Private Finance Initiative generally; and the attitude and statements of individual ministers (especially David Blunkett, the Home Secretary with regards to asylum seekers but really any HM Minister on the law and order ticket), are not those that one of the founder members of the Labour Party, or socialists, or even the people of the UK, would recognize as socialist policies. Many of these policies the Major (and even the later Thatcher years) government didnt implement because they thought it too radical. The recent Fire Brigades strike and the actions of ministers display all of the above to a great degree.

When one looks at bodies like the Militant tendency in Liverpool during the 1980's, or the 1979-83 Labour Party under Foot, or even the 87-92 Labour Party under Kinnock (which was, for the early part of that reign, at war with the Militants), one can see at least traces of socialism. The Blair government is not socialist.

I do concede though that from the POV of the US right any UK political party looks socialist, even the Tories.

What tactics have been used against the foxhunters? They have been voted against?

 

[Ledbetter]

Byron,

There's your answer: There are no socialist policies here, and these are not the droids you're looking for. Move along.

 

[Mk VII]

Blair's no socialist - he'd probably call himself a social Democrat if that label hadn't already been used by another lot in the 1980s. He has no principles other than(i) get elected and (ii) stay elected - 'Clinton Lite' is what somebody called him. His conspicious failure to turn up for the vote the other night (almost unheard of for a P.M. on a government bill) shows that he wishes he'd never started on this road, but it's too late to turn back now at affordable cost.
His Labour Party is a pale pink version of of the Conservative Party that got itself elected by stealing all the Tories' policies and repackaging them. There's hardly a stance of his that wouldn't have sat comfortably in Margaret Thatcher's 1979 platform. Real socialists hate Blair and his cronies for what he has done to their party, but recognise that there is nowhere else for them to go. Of course many Americans label anything left of (or even within) the Democratic Party as 'socialist' or 'communist' interchangeably. Your Democrats certainly don't look 'socialist' to us.
But the issues here may strike some chord with RKBA activists who say 'no law passed by a temporary and transient majority may override my 2nd Amendment rights'. To what extent will the foxhunters be justified in defying a ban, as many of them at least say they will?

 

[H Romberg]

Agricola,
The actions you describe have a lot in common with the NEP oe "New Economic Plan" implemented during the beginning years of the USSR. Private enterprise was actually encouraged, in order to build a sufficient store of wealth to fuel the revolution. It was widely successful, but was followed (and this was planned from the start if you read Lenin) by the period of "Collectivization". Basically, all the wealth generated under NEP was harvested by the state, and those who produced it (Kulaks etc) were exterminated.

Not to say that the Labor party is full of Bolshevik, but socialists have known for years that capitalism can be harnessed to fund their states.

 

[Bainx]

The people of Great Britian are not citizens but subjects.

Plain and simple

 

[agricola]

"blair and labour not socialist" shock

 

[Mk VII]

Police chiefs 'dread' enforcing hunt ban



POLICE chiefs warn the Government today that a blanket ban on fox-hunting would be almost impossible to enforce.
One chief constable says that he will not spend precious resources snooping on people hunting on private land, and that he will put action against illegal hunts behind dealing with road accidents and robberies on his list of priorities.
Writing in The Times on the day the Hunting Bill goes to a Commons committee after Monday's overwhelming vote for an outright ban, Alastair McWhirter says the new law fills police officers with dread.
Mr McWhirter, who is Chief Constable of Suffolk and rural spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers, expects widespread flouting of the law. He thinks people will wear ordinary clothes instead of hunting jackets and claim that they are simply out riding with their dogs.
He also highlights practical problems, such as how to arrest hunters when they are on horseback and what to do with the horses and hounds that must be seized if they are used for hunting. "If people are arrested they will have to be taken to a station and that will take several hours. Where do we put all the animals and how do we take control of them? Very few police officers are qualified to deal with horses and dogs and we haven't got large areas for stables. Should police be using their budgets to build stables?"
After years of being piggy in the middle between hunters and protesters, Mr McWhirter thinks things will get worse for the police. And he fears that, having secured a hunting ban, saboteurs will turn their attention to shooting and that people could get killed if demonstrators defied the guns.
With some 350 hunts in the country and about 250,000 people who take their dogs on individual hunts, the police surveillance task would be enormous - especially as most hunting takes place in isolated areas with minimal police presence. Mr McWhirter, who has never hunted or had any connection with field sports, also points out that policing a hunting ban did not figure on David Blunkett's priorities for police, nor had it been raised by any local authority.
For his own part, he would always send officers to deal with a motorway accident or robbery before investigating an illegal hunt. And he would not use the force's helicopter to look out for people hunting on private land. "Policing will be very difficult, depending on how many people decide to flout the law," he says. "We certainly will not turn a blind eye to any illegal hunting, but we will have to prioritise."
Mr McWhirter said that one way of enforcing the ban would be to film illegal hunting and then try to identify offenders in the same way as football hooligans are traced. But that would require a team of officers to identify people and then prove they were part of the hunt. He said: "We usually put up pictures of people wanted in connection with a riot or other illegal activity. But will we get the support of the public on this?"
Mr McWhirter speaks out with the approval of Chris Fox, the former Northamptonshire Chief Constable who is now the ACPO chief executive. He also has the backing of most other rural police chiefs, who prefer not to comment yet.
At the moment, a third of the forces in England and Wales spend an average £543,000 a year policing hunts. Denis O'Connor, Chief Constable of Surrey, said: "If the rules change, the risk is that our resources will be devoured keeping the peace. "

By Valerie Elliott and Stewart Tendler [Times, 3 July]

 

[tiberius]

Fox hunting is about RIDING, not HUNTING. I assume that they can still have the fake fox hunts where someone drags a smelly bag across the country side so the dogs chase that instead of the fox.

It seems that the hunters could claim they were following such a trail when they are really after a real fox.

The Police

He thinks people will wear ordinary clothes instead of hunting jackets and claim that they are simply out riding with their dogs.

I doubt this, the horsey set likes their costumes too much.

 

[tiberius]

Blair's no socialist - he'd probably call himself a social Democrat if that label hadn't already been used by another lot in the 1980s. He has no principles other than(i) get elected and (ii) stay elected

So is this why he sent his troops to fight in Iraq when every poll showed the voters were against it?

I'll take no shots at Mr. Blair, he's obviously a very brave man of strong convictions....and a loyal ally.

But, a social Democrat is just the new term for socialists...especially those who have already gotten rich themselves.

 

[Mk VII]

his public attitude was 'well, we hope to be able to exercise a restraining influence on the Americans'. Privately it's probably 'well, we probably owe them a favour or two and it might be useful to have some markers to cash in some day'.

 

[ACP230]

I used to have a certain grudging respect for the Brits.

Now, if I never heard another story about that constipated little island it would be fine with me.

 

[Thumper]

even the people of the UK, would recognize as socialist policies.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it, Neville (wherever you are)?