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213- What does it take to sabotage hunts effectively?
36 Plays1 hour ago
We don't often organise interviews, but we couldn't resist this opportunity; Phillip from North London Hunt Saboteurs speaks to Ant & Carlos about setting up, growing and organising the largest-known group of organised hunt saboteurs in the UK at the moment: North London Hunt Saboteurs.
You can learn more about the group via https://www.facebook.com/NorthLondonHuntSaboteurs/ (amongst other social media platforms)
As ever, we love hearing your views on the topics under discussion (or anything else!) so do drop us your thoughts via enoughofthefalafel@gmail.com
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Enough of the Falafel is a community of people who love keeping on top of the latest news in the world of veganism & animal rights. With the Vegan Talk podcast, we aim to develop listeners' (& our own) thoughts around key issues affecting veganism & the animal rights movement; giving our opinions, whilst staying balanced; remaining true to our vegan ethics, whilst constantly seeking to grow & develop.
Each week we home in on one topic in particular and pick it apart in more detail. If you have a suggestion for a future show, do get in touch via enoughofthefalafel@gmail.com.
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Thanks everyone for listening; give us a rating and drop us a message to say "hi"; it'll make our day!
Phillip, Carlos, & Anthony
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Transcript
Introduction: Vegan Week with Philip and Carlos
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello everybody. A couple years ago we did a Hunt Saboteur special and it was very well received so we are back with a very special guest. We are here with Philip. I'm also joined by Carlos and this is Vegan Week.
00:00:18
Speaker
So I think vegans go looking for trouble even when they're not looking for trouble. That's not what butter's used for. Brrrr! Take your lab-grown meat elsewhere. We're not doing that in the state of Florida. What about your protein and what about your iron levels? Should I call the media and say, hi, sorry? They're arguing like, oh, poor woe is me.
00:00:37
Speaker
Hang on a minute. You always pick phone.
Podcast Format: Deep Dives into Vegan Topics
00:00:45
Speaker
Hello everybody and welcome to Vegan this is Carlos and thank you so much for being here. long as you don't get the wee bruant with the horns you'll be all right does veganism give him
00:01:03
Speaker
don't have laser vision hello everybody and welcome to vegan talk this is carlos and thank you so much for being here Indeed, indeed. Anthony here, in case you've forgotten since the top of the show. This is one of our vegan talk episodes. We've got over a hundred of these now in our back catalog. You can go back and listen to them. The idea of them is that we focus on one topic and go into a bit more detail.
00:01:29
Speaker
If you've listened to one of our news shows before, we cover several stories from the week's vegan and animal rights news. So we're bopping from one thing to another, but we're going for a deep dive and we've got a very interesting deep dive today.
Founding the North London Hunt Saboteurs
00:01:41
Speaker
Yeah. So today we have Philip from North London Hunt Sabateurs, which is the largest known group of organized hunt sabs in the UK. Indeed. Now, Philip, first of all, thank you so much for being with us. We really appreciate your time. Thank you for asking me.
00:01:55
Speaker
Not at all. So I've been having a bit of a peruse. I've been looking through your guys' Facebook page and looking through some of the videos, really timely stuff. Like in the last few hours, there's been things.
00:02:06
Speaker
upon there. Carlos has told us a few things about the group because he's an active member of the group, but some of our listeners won't know very much at all. I wondered if you could go sort of right back to the start of the the group's formation.
00:02:20
Speaker
Sure. So in August 2020, I had been, by that point, sabotaging hunts for around four seasons. um But i found myself groupless.
00:02:31
Speaker
I was without a group to go sabbing with. And i'd for some time, I'd formed an idea, whilst it's bouncing around these few other groups that i was I'd been out with in the previous years, how I thought a hunt saboteur group could work to sort maximum effectiveness. Without wanting to sound arrogant, I had an idea of what I thought could be done better.
00:02:51
Speaker
And i started i decided to start my own group. I was going to walk away from Hunt Sabotage at that point, But I had the itch by then. i couldn't sleep. you know The season was about to start as well.
00:03:03
Speaker
Cubbing season, which is the very beginning of the season, was about to start. And I wasn't happy. was getting to the point that I'd been at a few years before when I first found out that fox hunting was still going on, where I was starting to get sleepless nights. So I was waking up at one o'clock, thinking about it and not being out to sleep for a couple of hours.
00:03:20
Speaker
thought of what they're doing. And amongst other things as well, in amongst what goes on in a slaughterhouse, what goes on in farms and the dairy industry and this sort of thing, it's more easy to take direct action with hunt sabotage.
00:03:33
Speaker
And up by this point, I knew how to do it. So I set about forming a group with a friend of mine called Will, who is no longer in the group. He left after one season because he moved up north to Manchester.
00:03:45
Speaker
And I carried on with things. And I set about creating a structure. a recruitment and training structure, making it more formal. Because I do think that some saboteur groups, and it's up to them how they run themselves, that's fine. I'm not disparaging any other saboteur groups. I wouldn't.
00:04:01
Speaker
We work with them. And I know people in the groups we work with who have an encyclopedic knowledge of hunts and a hunts country, and they're invaluable. But I do think sometimes... Hunt's Abotage suffers from the um sort of a casualness, if you like, if that's even a word, and a lack of structure.
00:04:17
Speaker
So that's that's what I set about doing. And the first season or so, we had about half a dozen people. And then in the summer of 2021, it started to snowball. More and more people Can we drill down into a couple of the things that you've said? So so in terms of like actually forming a group, like what what's involved? And and you've you've mentioned like recruiting people as as well. Like how how do you go about these things? we You meet them first.
00:04:43
Speaker
You make sure you meet them first and you get a feel for them because you want people who you think are going to be, are who want to get involved in this for the right reasons. not because they want to go out and get into a punch-up with a huntsman or so so-called toffs on horseback.
00:04:59
Speaker
You want people who are coming from an animal welfare point of view. I think many people who get involved in hunt sabotage, like money but people who get involved in almost anything, there isn't one singular reason. There'll be a pie chart of reasons, and that's fine.
00:05:13
Speaker
But you want the vast majority of that pie chart to be taken up by the animal welfare part of it. And you have to you have to make sure you you're getting the right people. And people who I think will follow rules and will take instruction and will have a belief in that structure and the reason for that structure.
Organizational Structure and Recruitment
00:05:33
Speaker
Why is that important? is it just ah is is Is that just kind of like your your your mantra for like that's how an organization works well, people following rules? Or is there something specific about hunt sabotage that means following rules is critical? Sure, sure. Not all organizations. have I don't know. I can't talk about all other organizations.
00:05:51
Speaker
But hunt sabotage, I believe hunt saboteur group functions best along those lines because you're dealing, when you're out in the field with the nitty gritty of it up against the hunt, you're dealing with dynamic situations that will change from one second to the next.
00:06:04
Speaker
quick decisions have to be taken. You can't sit down and have a parliament every two seconds. There has to be someone who knows, usually the most experienced member in that particular foot team, who knows what to do It's not always me. It's hardly ever me these days. it's There's other team leaders out there.
00:06:18
Speaker
you You have to have someone who can make those decisions quickly. Otherwise, it turns to crap. The fox is killed in no time at all. Will the hunt get away? You have to have people who understand that a certain level of fitness is required so that you can keep with the hunt. These people are on horseback and they will get away.
00:06:36
Speaker
Now you need one or two or preferably three or four foot teams who will coordinate with each other via radio, via whatever messenger service you're using, who will have that discipline to coordinate with each other and to work around the hunt because that's what we often do. We often actually just keep the hunt. The best way to sabotage a hunt is to keep them moving.
00:06:56
Speaker
That's what you do. You keep them moving with foot teams, leapfrogging. Obviously, the hunt can go faster. And to be able to do that with 21 people, 25, 18, whatever, takes structure.
00:07:08
Speaker
has to have People have to know what their role is, and they have to stick to it. that That's why it has to be organized this way. And you have to have people who believe in that. you can see the benefit of it before they even come out with us no thank you that makes a lot of sense it's it's you know i'm helpfully ignorant about a lot of these things which which many of our listeners will be too so uh do excuse any stupid questions i ask it's really useful so phil how many people are in north london hunsabs right now plus i know you've got recruits as well who are going not full members yet, but kind of going into their season, into the season now?
00:07:41
Speaker
We have 31 regular members and seven or eight recruits, including recruits we're getting on for 40 people. Okay, that's ah that's an impressive amount of people. i know most Hunt Sabotars group, subgroups across the country will have, I don't know, an average of, I don't know, eight on a good day, from my experience of seeing them, maybe higher than that. You know, what what's been the secret to to your success in recruiting people? One obvious advantage we have is we have London to a recruit from.
00:08:10
Speaker
The city of nine million people. There's a lot of activism there. And, know, we're called North London. They don't all live in North London. Some of them live in South London and and some of of them live in the home counties. I think... What we've, and I'm not saying me, I say we, have done quite well is we've created a group where people feel safe to go up against the hunts because it can be dangerous out there. We're dealing with people who can be famously violent.
00:08:33
Speaker
I've experienced that violence before I was in this group and since we do still get violence. But I think generally we've managed to create ah space where the support, people feel supported, people feel safe. They know that they can look to their left and the right and the person they see each side of them will back them up if it all goes wrong.
00:08:50
Speaker
they need to do their part too. And you, you, you draw that into people, the responsibility to be a team player. And everyone's being a team player, you're okay. You're good to go. What, what, what does that look like in, in terms of like, cause I've never been out in this situation. What, how, how does one be a team player as a, as a hunt saboteur when I've got people either side, like what, what do I need to do or what do I not need to do? You need to carry out your role is what you need to do.
00:09:18
Speaker
You need to... It can be stressful, hunt sabotage. it can be when you look you keep you know You might have a day where the hunter is getting ahead of you. You've got a fast pack. ah The thugs are out. And you need to keep your head and not stamp your feet and throw your radio or your camera or your bottle of citronella or whatever on the floor and start having a hissy fit.
00:09:36
Speaker
This is the first thing you do. teamwork comes from each of us our own behavior to start with you stick to your job but and you maintain your discipline and that's where it comes from to start with that's the first thing is there a part of you you mentioned like feeling safe as well else and it felt like part of what you were referring to was when you are out in the field is there an element as well when you are not pursuing the hunt i'm i'm thinking about debriefs afterwards in between days doing things is there an element of that too in terms of camaraderie debriefing checking in with one
Training, Communication, and Transport Needs
00:10:14
Speaker
another
00:10:14
Speaker
Absolutely, absolutely. So, I mean, before the hunt, we always have a briefing where the teams are set out. Well, the teams are set out the night before. We'll have a briefing the next morning where I will, whoever's leading the whole thing that day, will remind people of their roles, where newer people will be told, you can't make a mistake.
00:10:32
Speaker
You're not just going to be thrown out the back of a land cruiser in the middle of a field and expected to know what to do. You're going to be with us all the time. What you need to do is listen. And that's what people want. That's what I found people want.
00:10:43
Speaker
if If people are coming forward to give up their precious time on a Saturdays, because you know contrary to what the our opponents might say, we do have jobs. And if people are giving up their precious time, they want to be shown.
00:10:55
Speaker
And if you start a job, and it could be anything, it could be an MD at this company, or it could be barista or whatever. You want someone to show you how to do that job. Otherwise, you're going to be stood there like a lemon. and So again, that's where structure comes into it.
00:11:08
Speaker
So we remind the new people of this. We remind them there's no such thing as a stupid question. These are the sort of things we do. This is the sort of talk I'll be giving. This is a Friday evening now. We're having this conversation. Tomorrow morning, about half past four somewhere,
00:11:20
Speaker
I'll be briefing to a team of 23 other hunt saboteurs going out, three or four of whom are brand new. A couple of those three or four are going to be on their very first hit. This is what I'll be saying to them. So yeah, it's sort of thing we do.
00:11:31
Speaker
And then you keep the briefing going during the day. Communication is a very important thing. yeah There has to be formality. And communication in any organization is an obvious part of that. You know, it's it's a tenet of it. You know, you have to sweat the small stuff. You have to sweat the small stuff in sticking to the rules. You have to sweat the small stuff in, ah from my point of view, from a leadership point of view, accountability.
00:11:50
Speaker
You have to sweat the small stuff in terms of communicating, even when you don't want to. So that will go on during the day. And then afterwards, we do have a debrief afterwards as well. And if any mistakes have been made, people need to know that they they can admit it. And then we work out what happened and what went wrong. Things generally don't go wrong because we we focus an awful lot on training.
00:12:06
Speaker
We have training days. I often, we had a training day a few weeks ago down in North London. I didn't take it given to us by Hans Saboteur of 40 odd years experience. The support we get from the Saboteur groups who regularly work with, such as North Downs, SES, Hertfordshire. Yeah, it's great. it it It sounds like there's a real focus on on detail there, which is incredible.
00:12:29
Speaker
you've You've mentioned like your geographical position helping ah your recruitment efforts. I wonder, is that part of, I've heard that you've got an impressive range of vehicles as well, relatively again, relative to to to ah other Huntsab groups.
00:12:49
Speaker
You know, we're not talking like enterprise cars with a choice of 30 different vehicles out the back or whatever but is that something that's been helped by your geographical location in the the range of people that you can tap into from support or is there something more ingenious you've done to acquire those yeah i've learned how to be half mechanic um I had to because it saves money. ah yeah So yeah, we've got the four Land Cruisers, not to show off, just out of this absolute necessity.
00:13:19
Speaker
We took delivery of our fourth this summer just gone. And I am helped greatly by some others in the group who take care of the vehicles and they they they know of good garages and yeah they they definitely contribute I do a lot so I've learned how to do a lot of the servicing on them myself because it saves oil changes oil filters air filters this sort of stuff more basic stuff um alternators when they go this sort of thing because I wanted to and had it not had it been it not been for sabotage I never would have known how to do but it's you know when when you're looking at a service that's 200 quid a throw
00:13:53
Speaker
It adds up to a lot of money. So I went out and bought the ramps. I went out and bought the socket sets and a very thick Hanes manual. And I learned how to do a lot of this stuff myself with these cars. That's why they're all Land Cruisers. It's just to keep the the fleet the same, the same vehicles.
00:14:09
Speaker
So I went home to learn how to to do this and that on a Land Cruiser and then ah six months later on a Land Rover and then on a Mitsubishi or an L200 or whatever. So the cars, they take up a lot of time sometimes, but there's nothing like seeing two, three, four of the Land Cruisers going out into the countryside and 20-odd hunt saboteurs pouring out of them on a Saturday morning to confront the hunt.
00:14:30
Speaker
And that's when I know it's worth it. It is well worth it. You know, I've i've lost money the weekend to fixing those things. I'm sure. I'm sure. Can you dig down into the details in terms of like the the utility of them then?
00:14:44
Speaker
So it's, I mean, it's, you're You're talking about land cruisers and then you're talking about lots of people jumping out of them. It's not just a taxi service, is it? Like, what's the what's the relevance of having them and having that specific type of vehicle? What are you using them for?
00:14:59
Speaker
So, yeah, good question. um what we what we need What we need them for is to get out to the hunts, is to is to transport the 20-odd people out to a hunt. in in deeper Suffolk, Hertfordshire, Essex, Surrey, Northamptonshire.
00:15:13
Speaker
And you need land cruisers because you're that type of vehicle because you need reliable cars and you need road but you need they need to be robust. Hunt saboteurs get very muddy, dirty and sweaty during during the course of of several hours going around the countryside after a hunt.
00:15:29
Speaker
And you don't want them jumping into the back of your you know, your Mercedes E-Class. And the other good thing about Land Cruises is they're eight-seaters. So four of them you can fit eight in. So we've got, you know, what, a 32-person carrying capacity.
00:15:44
Speaker
That's why they're good as well. And also in in the countryside, especially in the depths of the winter, because the the hunting season takes place roughly between September and March, April, you you've got it gets very wet and it gets very muddy.
00:15:56
Speaker
You've got fjords, rivers, floods. you You often find yourself on single track roads that you have to will have to go past another vehicle and you might have to do a little bit of sort of maybe not proper off-roading, but certainly soft-roading.
00:16:08
Speaker
So it helps to have a four-wheel drive car with off-road tyres on it or... intermediates goodness goodness okay i mean ah i want to ask one more question on the vehicles because i'm right i'm really fascinated i'm not a car buff at all by any stretch but from an insurance point of view do you just have to be ambiguous about what you're using them for or like are there special technicalities there well i spend a lot of my um social and leisure time disrupting hunts so that's the sort of insurance we have yes
00:16:40
Speaker
And we don't do more than 10,000 miles a year. And it's fully comp. Yeah. Excellent. Excellent. That's fine. No further questions, Your
Independence from the Hunt Saboteurs Association
00:16:48
Speaker
Honor. So recently I've spotted in our social media that we describe ourselves as an independent group, even though we did not describe ourselves as an independent group last season.
00:16:59
Speaker
So you want to explain where that comes from and... and how that kind of came about? Yeah, sure. So the first season we were going in 2020 to 21, we were independent then.
00:17:11
Speaker
We started as an independent group and we got on just fine as an independent group. The following season, we saw a benefit of affiliating to the HSA, which the Hunts and Returns Association are an umbrella organization.
00:17:23
Speaker
organization with lots of other affiliated saboteur groups under their wings and it remained that way for a few seasons up until summer just gone summer 25 when we felt the direction that we were going in wasn't quite the same as the HSA's in terms of politics, mainly politics, and that we would have more freedom to operate as an independent group. Okay, so um so was this a tough decision to make? It was not a tough decision. It was a decision that took some time to make, but towards the end, it certainly wasn't a tough one. it was It was quite an obvious one. It was quite an obvious one. Being independent, we can run our group as we see fit.
00:18:01
Speaker
We can organise ourselves as we see fit without any attempted interference. ah We can engage in other political campaigns as we see fit without having to pacify anyone on any committee anywhere.
00:18:12
Speaker
And how about, obviously, a lot of the other subgroups we collaborate with, they are still with the HSA. yeah So how does that play out? Is there a collaboration remain? Yeah, absolutely.
00:18:24
Speaker
Absolutely. There's no different there' no difference. I've not heard any complaints from any of the groups we regularly work with. It's business as usual. We're still sabotaging hunts with them, same as we were last season when we were affiliated. Perhaps helps having such a ah horrific unified enemy that that everyone is working against.
Role of Media and Social Media in Outreach
00:18:44
Speaker
That ah probably doesn't do any harm, does it?
00:18:47
Speaker
that I mentioned earlier, Philip, that i I was looking at the the social media that um the North London Hunt Subs put out. And it's what I noticed is and it was very quick turnaround. So as as far as I'm aware, there's there's something that I'm looking at at the moment that's very, very recent, like within hours of it happening.
00:19:10
Speaker
um' I'm looking at this. And then the previous video that, um again, looks like it's only just over 24 hours old is really well produced. that That kind of media side of things is really striking. And just for a a lay person, obviously, I'm invested in animal rights and and and veganism. But that really helps me come on board with what you're doing. And I understand that there are possibly plans to launch a podcast as well. Do you want to talk to us about your approach to to media and your kind of communications to those outside of your organization? Yeah, my approach to media and producing is to find someone who knows more than me about it and get them to do it.
00:19:56
Speaker
That's not... that's the good thing about having such a large group. There are people in the group. Everyone brings their own set of skills that wouldn't on the face of it be of any benefit to hunt sabotage in the field, but that those skills are of benefit to everything else that goes on around hunt sabotage, such as the PR, such as your social media.
00:20:12
Speaker
And we have several people who are very good at making videos, such as the one you, one of the videos are looking at now. And, It's important. Whilst things things like the videos we put out there are important, the hit reports are important, none of it's as important as the cutting edge of what this group does, which is in the field. you know We're not a social group.
00:20:32
Speaker
We're not going to spend more time on a podcast or boasting about what interviews we've had here and there than we are planning and preparing and indeed going into the field. That's always the fighting edge of what we do.
00:20:45
Speaker
But over the past few years, we have come to realise the importance of social media in terms of fundraising, because we've realised the importance of fundraising more and more with the more vehicles we've bought, which obviously cost money to run and run on about 20 miles to gallon to the gallon. So we've also realised it more in terms of literally your your outreach, telling people what we do.
00:21:03
Speaker
Hunt sabotage is a tiny niche area of animal rights. It really is. I will, from time to time, come across other animal rights activists who, and I might mention Hunt Sabotage to them, and they go, what?
00:21:16
Speaker
What's that? And these are people who weren't just passing by and sort of stopped off at a protest outside Canada Goose for two minutes. These are people who are well involved in what they're doing, are quite worldly wise, didn't come didn't start this life yesterday, and they't they've not heard of it.
00:21:30
Speaker
Or they have heard of it, and they think it stopped 20-odd years ago when the hunting ban. so yeah Because that's the next thing you get from them. Oh, I thought that finished. I thought I'd stop doing that. anymore so So it is important in terms of outreach. It's important in in terms of recruitment.
00:21:44
Speaker
An awful lot of people, whove come most people in the group, I think found us on social media. Less so now. It seems to be moving more. we We're recruiting more now through word of mouth. which is good because they sort of come a little bit pre-vetted if someone in the group has recommended them. So I trust that person.
00:22:02
Speaker
the The other stuff that goes that you mentioned, it has become very important to the group. Very, very important. It's important for getting people to fundraisers. Like Unity Diner have been good enough to host several fundraisers for us. It's important for that sort of thing.
00:22:15
Speaker
And it has to look professional. And I can't make it look professional because I don't know what i'm doing. But other people can. And so it's very important to embrace and respect that that that skill set that people bring in. Yeah, well, I mean, it's it's very striking and it comes across straight away. And it's... um Like you say, it's it it wouldn't it be great if every every grassroots direct action group had had access to that that skill set? But i I guess it's the fact that you're putting it out there. um
00:22:46
Speaker
Well, so that's the other thing, because there was a time when we didn't. you know When we first started the group, the first couple of seasons, we didn't have people who great at it. I had to sort of learn how to become half-deaten at it, and so did others. so And I remember that frustration.
00:22:59
Speaker
It was like I'd sit here at my desk and with a laptop looking at this video editing technology. well but you know It's a good job I'd already lost my hair. because it would you me know How do I do this?
00:23:12
Speaker
And so when people came forward who, A, not only it turns out were pretty good at this sort of thing, but were also willing to put their time into it and they know their effort, it's it's a godsend. And I do practice gratitude for for the people in the group who go out of their way.
00:23:28
Speaker
If you've got someone who comes into a hunt saboteur group, or any hunt saboteur group, and just wants to be a sort of once or twice a month out in the field sort foot soldier, that's absolutely fine. That's absolutely fine. that's Again, that's the cutting edge of what we do.
00:23:40
Speaker
And I'd always want that ahead of anything else. But if they do offer their time up to do other things, then yeah I practice gratitude when they do. Definitely. Speaking of people giving away their time and Saturdays and skills and so on, what you have to say about the critics of HunSabs who constantly say that we are paid money to be out there.
00:24:03
Speaker
Well, if we were, I'd be living in a more expensive postcode. I don't know. I mean, who who's who says that, Carlos? it's it's It's the people on the other side, isn't it? Yeah. um It's the fox hunters. It's their circle.
00:24:17
Speaker
They're the same people who've been going around for the past 20 years trying to convince the world and his wife that they're following a smelly rag, despite the amount of evidence to the contrary. you know To be honest, I don't think too much about what they say. I mean, paid paid paid paid by who?
00:24:31
Speaker
Paid by who? Well, i'm really I'm really surprised to hear that that is a thing that gets that gets thrown at you, actually. That's quite farcical, really, isn't it? Other saboteurs who've been doing this far longer than me back in the yas they were getting it then.
00:24:45
Speaker
Oh, you're paid by Linda McCartney. ah during the Cold War, that it was, you're paid by the Russians. and Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's nothing new in any of it. It's just, it's it's waffle. It's the same people who stand there accusing us of pulling children off ponies, ah stabbing horses with hypodermic needles.
00:25:06
Speaker
It goes in one ear and out the other. It's wonderful. Yeah, but would wouldn't it be good if Linda McCartney sponsored us? Absolutely. Not paid us to go on the field, but just donated. That would be fantastic. Yeah, it would be.
00:25:19
Speaker
Absolutely. um All right. So obviously being out in the fields is is the cutting edge of what hunt saboteurs do.
Political Collaboration for a Stronger Hunting Ban
00:25:29
Speaker
But I know that North London has been also been involved in an initiative that's not on the field to try to stop fox hunting. So can you tell us about the new hunting ban? the The new hunting ban was started by several members of our group, led by another member in particular, Mr Giles.
00:25:46
Speaker
And I think they spotted ah gap in the political arena that wasn't being filled by the regular sort suspects like the League Against Cruel Sports, the RSPCA and others.
00:25:57
Speaker
And whilst a lot of these organisations, including the ones I've just mentioned, will often talk about their meeting with some MP somewhere or a councillor or senior police officer, what no one seemed to be doing was bringing these people, the anti-hunt MPs from all parties around the table and the senior police officers, getting them into the same room and other people of knowledge around the law and around the Hunting Act and the abuses thereof by the hunts.
00:26:24
Speaker
And it wasn't happening. So some members of our group set out to create a lobby group. They named it the new hunting ban because that's what they're lobbying for, is a new hunting ban, a strengthening of the current ban, which would in effect be a new one because we're trying to make it that much stronger.
00:26:41
Speaker
yeah As you know, we have a couple of lot of very, very qualified lawyers in our group and we've been able to network with these other organisations, just like we did Tuesday just gone at Parliament.
00:26:52
Speaker
We have found several MPs willing to get us into Parliament, get us the meeting rooms in which we can physically get these people, and you know figuratively speaking, bang their heads together.
00:27:03
Speaker
Now's the time. Labour have made this commitment. It's been 20 years. We need people from all corners of the anti-hunting lobby in the same room together, not having their own little meetings here and there and then boasting about it on social media.
00:27:15
Speaker
you know There's a place for LAX, there's a place for the RSPCA, there's a place for the HSA, there's a place for hunt saboteur groups like ours because we're the only people in these rooms at the moment who are both in the field and speaking to MPs, it's hunt saboteurs.
00:27:27
Speaker
The League Against Cool Sports aren't hunt saboteurs and neither the RSPCA and some of the other groups I've mentioned. so That's the important thing of the new hunting band. That's the importance of it. It's had a couple of setbacks recently because Zeichner was sacked.
00:27:42
Speaker
So we've got to start again with DEFRA. That being said, the lady who's now in charge of DEFRA has is on the record as being quite anti-hunt. So hopefully it shouldn't take too long to get back up to speed to where we were with DEFRA.
00:27:54
Speaker
So that's the idea of the new hunting banner. Isn't infuriating that like you've got a government that says that it's going to follow through with this and yet and still it is people from grassroots organisations that are seemingly having to do all the legwork. It's like it's... Oh my goodness.
00:28:12
Speaker
Absolutely. But if you look back, that's often been the case. It's been the case of many movements. But yeah, it is frustrating. it' It's like, yeah, it's like wading through treacle. We are getting there. were We are making progress.
00:28:24
Speaker
But we need to do it quickly because, you know, how long of labor how long has this government got in? You know, so they've only got a couple of years left and we've still got to start the consultation. And there's a good chance they won't be re-elected. If you look at the polls, there's a good chance they won't be re-elected.
00:28:37
Speaker
Worse, not only will they not be re-elected, it might be reformed who take their place. And if that happens, Farage is a fan of fox hunting. So we might be i might be spending the next 20 years running around a field somewhere.
Legitimizing Hunt Sabotage and Law Enforcement Challenges
00:28:49
Speaker
if it If, you know, if... the best he would do The best he would do is just change nothing. So we carry on under the trail hunting lie. Or the worst he could do is repeal the hunting act. And then we're in trouble because then we're back to pre-2005. And there'd lot of people who couldn't do it because they'd be getting arrested for aggravated trespass and what have you. it would It would start to force hunt sabotage back underground again.
00:29:08
Speaker
One of the things I like that we've done with this group is we've sort of legitimised hunt sabotage somewhat. It's one of the few, in fact, it's the only area of direct action that I can think of where the law is actually on our side.
00:29:20
Speaker
Direct action in animal rights, that is, where the law is on our side. And we've worked quite hard to, you know, take the face coverings off, go and speak to the senior police officers to legitimise what we're doing.
00:29:32
Speaker
And I do understand why people in other groups will do things like cover their faces. I understand that. They live out in these rural communities. They might live near hunters or they live near the thugs and they could be targets.
00:29:42
Speaker
And houses have been targeted. I know of people who have had fireworks put through their letterbox. I've been sent dead rats in the post. I've come out of my house to a dead fox on my car, windscreen. So I do understand it.
00:29:54
Speaker
And that was the price I had to pay for putting my identity out there. But... It was short-term pain for long-term gain because what I gained in the long run was going into police stations saying, right, my name is Philip Walters and I've got evidence of this hunt doing this or assaulting this person and what are you going to do about and by the way, your officers treated the victim as a suspect.
00:30:13
Speaker
Why is that? And that does, I've seen it happen. It was going on in the sort of 2016, 17, 18 when I first got involved in this. I did see it happening where hunter saboteur would be assaulted, the police would turn up,
00:30:24
Speaker
And they'd have a go the hunt saboteur. They'd start using the Public Order Act to move... Or they'd threaten him them with arrest. And they'd start using the Public Order Act to move them out of the area. We've just been assaulted. We're the ones... And the hunt would be laughing their heads off in a field.
00:30:35
Speaker
They wouldn't... They were so confident and brazen, sometimes they wouldn't even leave the area. You know, if you just committed an offence of assault and the police are there, you might you might want to sort of disappear. And not only would they be in the field laughing while we were at the roadside, they'd carry on hunting.
00:30:49
Speaker
in front of the cops because they knew the cops were either clueless as to what was really going on or were complicit. that that you And it infuriated me. Absolutely. it takes a lot to get me out my chair, but it did infuriate me. And that's why I was doing it.
00:31:01
Speaker
So you i I didn't agree with this thing that some people will do in going online and slagging the police off. Instead, get into the police station and positively confront their management teams.
00:31:13
Speaker
get and Get to professional standards. Get to the IOPC. learn their system you know the policing system is famously is esoteric one they even have their own language people don't understand it and people can be intimidated by it that being said so it's also more democratized now than it ever was you know my father my grandfather's senior police officer back in 70s and 80s and you there was nothing you could do if you came across police misconduct in those days or very little you could do especially for working class people like me so it has actually become much far more democratized And people don't always realise that. And they don't realise it because you you have to go and find out.
00:31:46
Speaker
It can be very difficult dealing with them. I can't remember why I went down this rabbit hole. Where did I start?
Philip's Message on Fox Hunting and Group's Mission
00:31:50
Speaker
yeah Well, ah we were talking about the the new hunting ban, but I have to say everything you've said, Philip, is fantastic.
00:31:57
Speaker
fascinating and and really really insightful so uh yeah ah welcome the tangent that's that's grand um i'm i'm aware i'm aware of the time and you've got an early start in the morning doing this this very stuff that we're we're talking about we've got hundreds of fantastic listeners out there um across the uk but also across the world so i just wanted to give you just like a final opportunity if there's a message that you wanted it to get out there or anything that we've not covered that you want if you particularly would like to drill down on yeah or how people can find you we can be found on facebook or i'm of a certain age now the talk the talk the twit t twitter note or the x we can be found on most mainstream social media you know if people want to come and have a look
00:32:43
Speaker
at what we're doing fox hunting is still going on in the uk people might think it disappeared people not from these shores might think it disappeared sort of with the victorians or it very much didn't it's very much here and it's going on illegally but it's still going on and all we are are a group of 30 odd normal everyday people from all sorts of backgrounds who looked at it and thought know stuff this i'm the state isn't doing anything i'm going to go out there and do something and that's what we did that's what we did we're not extremists we're not this and that we're just ordinary people and we got fed up of it and thank you yeah well and and thank goodness that you are that's it's it's fabulous and all the all the uphill struggles that you have and to do so it's it's it's remarkable and
00:33:28
Speaker
godspeed in what you're doing goodness me and let's let's hope we can get to those you know those those bits on the cliff face that we can hang on to and get a little bit further up and it it sounds very much like you're doing so so yeah philip thank you so much for your time and and for what you're doing with the group thank you very much to get in touch with us just send us an email at enough of the falafel at gmail.com We see ourselves as a collective. our listenership stretches all around the world and everyone's opinions, questions, feedback and ideas are what helps shape the show.
00:34:04
Speaker
Go on, send us a message today. enough of the falafel at gmail dot com Fantastic stuff. That was that was really brilliant. we've We've let Philip go because he's got an early start in the morning. um But um yeah, if you if you enjoyed that, like like Julie said, send us an email.
00:34:21
Speaker
But also remember, you can comment on specific episodes if you're listening on Spotify. um You can also rate us, subscribe. but All that sort of stuff helps get our podcast out to to more people. So if you can help with that, then do so. Carlos, when's the next episode coming out?
00:34:37
Speaker
Yeah, keep an eye out or an ear out because it's audio only for the next Elf of the Falafel episode. So that's ah Monday, next Monday with Dominic, Julie and Mark.
00:34:48
Speaker
And that's Vegan Week, which is our usually week weekly roundup of the latest vegan and animal rights news. So that's Monday, Dominic, Julie and Mark, Vegan Week. Nice one. Anyway, that is enough of the falafel for this episode.
00:35:00
Speaker
Thank you, of course, Philip. And thank you to Carlos for your contributions. Thanks everyone for listening. Do share this one to all your family, friends and work colleagues and fellow vegans.
00:35:11
Speaker
I have been Anthony. You've been listening to Vegan Talk from the Enough of the Falafel Collective.
00:35:21
Speaker
This has been an Enough of the Falafel production. We're just a normal bunch of everyday vegans putting our voices out there. The show is hosted by Zencaster. We use music and special effects by zapsplap.com.
00:35:36
Speaker
And sometimes, if you're lucky, at the end of an episode, you'll hear a poem by Mr Dominic Berry. Thanks all for listening and see you next time.
00:36:02
Speaker
This episode may have come to an end, but did you know we've got a whole archive containing all our shows dating back to September 2023? twenty twenty three That is right, Dominic. There's over 100 episodes on there featuring our brilliant range of different guests, people's stories of going vegan, philosophical debates, moral quandaries, and of course...
00:36:23
Speaker
around a dozen news items from around the world each week. So check back on your podcast player to hear previous episodes. And remember to get an alert for each new episode, simply click like or follow and also subscribe to the show.
00:36:37
Speaker
Thanks for your ongoing support wherever you listen to us from.