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199- Twenty years of the UK Hunting Act...where are we at?
61 Plays10 hours ago
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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Mark & Ant
Recommended
Transcript
Summer Content Plans
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello everyone and welcome to another Enough of the Falafel podcast. We've recorded over 200 of these shows now, all relating to veganism and animal rights.
00:00:14
Speaker
And because of all that hard work, each summer we give ourselves just a few weeks off recording. But don't fret, we're not leaving you in the lurch. You are still going to have twice weekly bits of brilliant content and shows to listen to.
00:00:29
Speaker
They're just going to be a bit different.
Exploring Animal Rights History
00:00:31
Speaker
Coming out on the next few Thursdays are going to be a special history series where Mark and myself look back at some of the lesser reported aspects of animal rights history. And each Monday, we're going to share with you one of our favourite episodes from the Enough of the Falafel Archive, an episode that we've gone back and listened to again and we thought you might enjoy having a second listen to as well. Or maybe you'll be coming across it for the first time.
00:01:02
Speaker
We really hope you enjoy these special shows that we've put together for you, that you're having a great time, whatever you're up to this month while we're having a little bit of time off recording week to week.
00:01:14
Speaker
And normal service will be resumed on the 1st of s September. So sit back and enjoy this special episode from Enough of the Falafel.
00:01:25
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. Protein. 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, all poor woe is me.
00:01:44
Speaker
Hang on a minute. You always pick
00:01:52
Speaker
social injustice has connection another.
Hunting Act 2005: Evolution and Challenges
00:01:56
Speaker
That's just what people think vegans eat anyway. As long as you didn't get the wee brunions with the horns you'll be alright. Does veganism give him superpowers?
00:02:07
Speaker
I cannot fly around the city. I don't have laser vision. Hello everyone, we have got another special episode for you today. You might have tuned into the previous episodes where we head into into the DeLorean and go back in time to focus on a specific area of animal rights history. We're here to do the same again with no further ado.
00:02:30
Speaker
Over to Mark.
Trail Hunting Loophole
00:02:31
Speaker
Hi everyone. and So today I'm going to talk to you all about the evolution of the Hunting Act which came into law in 2005 in the United Kingdom with the exception of Northern Ireland.
00:02:43
Speaker
Interestingly it's it's it's the one time the the loyalists in Northern Ireland don't want to be doing what Britain is doing. The only time is when it came to abusing animals. So it's been hunting with dogs, has been banned in the United Kingdom since 2005. And what that means is that you, an individual or a club cannot go out hunting with anything more than two dogs in order to kill a quarry.
00:03:09
Speaker
and they And they will use the dogs to flush out the quarry and a gun to kill the quarry. Okay. So no more of this sort of pageantry of going around in like a mass gang, basically, with tons of dogs in tow, setting all those dogs on a terrified and exhausted animal, typically a fox or it could be an otter or a mink and so on.
00:03:31
Speaker
So it came into being in 2005. Naively, perhaps a lot of people thought that that was the end of hunting because it was now written into law in some format.
00:03:42
Speaker
the The reality was was that it it was it was driven into law and and written by the Labour Party, you who are not known for their enlightened animal welfare outlook. I would say it's probably better than the Tories, but it's it's nowhere near where it should be. So it was a essentially revenge for the miners' strike.
00:04:00
Speaker
It was a poke in the eye to the Tories, and it was badly written, full of loopholes. The principal loophole being it was still okay to go out what was described as trail hunting, which is something, admittedly, that the anti-hunt movement had been encouraging all along since the anti-hunt had been around for a century and a half through the League Against Cruel Sports, and the Hunt Saboteurs and so on, have always encouraged trail hunting as opposed to live animal hunting. And what trail hunting is, is when a lowly paid sort of farmhand will will be given a few quid to
00:04:33
Speaker
soak the ends of his trousers in a fox scent, and then run around in a random pattern in a given area around the countryside, and then disappear. and then it's the hounds job to pick up the scent because the hounds hunt by scent and not by sight. They're actually very low to the ground.
00:04:48
Speaker
So, so, so they can't see very far. Their line of horizon is extremely short. So, so they hunt by smell. So they get onto the, to the hunt, to, to the scent of the, the, the, the trailed out scent. And then they follow that to the end and that, and that concludes the day's fun. The only difference between that and ah live animal hunting, obviously is it doesn't culminate in an agonizing, tortured,
00:05:12
Speaker
death of an animal. That is the only difference really. They still get to ride around in their joppers and their shitty hats and their red coats and all that and hobnob with each other which is its main function is as a social class catalyst really. It's it's got very little to do with sport. And interestingly as well it's it's still exploiting animals isn't it which is what interested me when you said actually the the anti-hunt lobby was was kind of suggesting trail hunting as an alternative you're still breeding and effectively incarcerating dogs to be part of that activity for their lives you're still getting on the back of a horse and riding it around the countryside even if
00:05:55
Speaker
a quarry isn't killed at the end of it. It's it's interesting that it's still predicated on animal use, isn't it? It is, and you've sort of hit hit the nail on the head there, really,
Social Dominance in Fox Hunting
00:06:04
Speaker
Ant. One of the main features and reasons behind fox hunting in its it was contemporary current state, because it still goes on, even though it's illegal, its main one of its main um ideas is to express the dominance of the of the ruling class over their immediate subjects.
00:06:22
Speaker
And they do this by getting on horseback in in a gang, in a pack, and ah tearing through the countryside following wherever a terrified animal that they're chasing chooses to go.
00:06:33
Speaker
I've been on um hunts, sabotaging them, of course, that have gone on to golf courses on a Saturday morning when the golf course was being used and was actually quite busy, and they would tear across this golf course ah in and in pursuit of the fox who was going to go anywhere he or she can to evade these hounds, across rail tracks, across dual carriageways, you know, into people's back gardens.
00:06:58
Speaker
ah it's It's a form of an expression of dominance. We're here. We can do what we want, where we want. We can tear up an animal in front of you if if you want we want. We can do it in your back garden if we want. to We can do it to your pet animal if that's what happens.
00:07:15
Speaker
And if that's what happens, then it's tough shit. And this is a this is a a common tactic amongst the ruling elite. They do it to each other when they're teenagers in and in boarding schools. It's called the fag system.
00:07:27
Speaker
It's an extension of that. it's It's all about that, really. There are so many other ways of... If controlling foxes was their aim, as it used to be purported, it isn't anymore.
00:07:37
Speaker
There are so much more efficient ways of controlling foxes, in inverted commas, than fox hunting in its sort of its traditional form. So ah yes, it is it is a form of dominance.
00:07:49
Speaker
That's why it's really hard to root out when the act came in. The reaction of the hunt sabotage movement was to stand back and give it a season, and see what happens.
00:08:00
Speaker
So it was no longer legal to actively set your dogs after a fox, but it was perfectly legal to take them all out for a walk en masse. if the If the hounds happened to stumble across the scent of a fox by accident and then pursued that animal and tore it to pieces,
00:08:19
Speaker
as long as you, the huntsman, wasn't encouraging that through recognized voice calls and horn calls, then that was sort of nature at its and it's sort of ah on its own course, and and you weren't liable for it. But if if there was evidence showing that you were encouraging the hounds to to to hunt on by getting video evidence of them doing this, ah basically, then it could be used as evidence against them in court.
00:08:45
Speaker
They were contravening the act, and they might get fined. If they did get a fine, the fine would be paid straight away by whatever membership or whatever club that they're a part of. So the individual themselves have never been impacted but by this law, even though loads of them have been actually convicted by it. Can I just clarify a point then, Mark? Because you mentioned earlier that the when the act came in, it prohibited more than two dogs going out hunting a quarry. But also we kind of hear that, well, fox hunting is illegal is there a distinction there that you can go out with one or two dogs but are there certain animals that you can hunt with one or two dogs right so yeah where does that work yeah so uh the way it works now is that the tradition of fox hunting required 20 30 or more dogs in order for two the uh the skill of fox hunting and there and there is a skill behind it
00:09:40
Speaker
it's It's considered to be probably did the most skill intensive, skill demanding blood sports out there. So the the skill is is in controlling the older, more mature dogs and getting them to do what you want getting them to go where you want them to go. And they will be followed by the ah younger, and less experienced dogs by nature.
00:10:02
Speaker
So they formed him into sort of a spearhead with the more mature dogs at the at the spear tip. And they go in certain formations through a copse of woods or across a field. And the huntsman shows his skills through through voice calls and horn calls.
00:10:18
Speaker
And these calls control the hounds in front of him. So there's the skill. So as I say, when the ban came into effect in 2005, the season 2006,
00:10:30
Speaker
the Huntsab movement stepped back and ah wanted to observe how the whole thing would pan out. The way it panned out was that the police publicly declared that they didn't have the resources anymore to attend these hunts.
00:10:42
Speaker
for the la For the previous 30 plus years, they had every resource under the sun. When they didn't have the resources, they forced new laws through parliament to make sure they did have the resources.
00:10:53
Speaker
When even these new laws weren't enough, they broke those laws. fully expecting and willing to pay the massive compensation they would have to pay to the people that they they had arrested from the public purse.
00:11:04
Speaker
So they they threw everything at the at the anti-hunt movement, including, as we have discussed on previous shows, on enough of the falafel spies in infiltrating people's lives for
Police Bias in Anti-Hunting Laws
00:11:14
Speaker
for years at a time, having children with activists in order to glean information.
00:11:19
Speaker
They were that concerned. They were that, I'm not sure frightened is right word, they were that concerned about what the anti-hunt movement was doing, that they were prepared to go to those resources to try and crush it.
00:11:29
Speaker
As soon as the bill became into law and became an act in 2005, they suddenly and publicly declared, as i say, that there was no longer any resources to attend. hunt and police the hunt for once rather than the anti-hunt movement and make sure that the hunt were sticking to the law.
00:11:45
Speaker
So as it turned out, after a few seasons, after a few years in, that the hunting fraternity realized that the rate of sabotage had dropp dropped off dramatically.
00:11:56
Speaker
The police weren't turning up to enforce the new law. There wasn't many sabs on the ground the way there used to be in the 80s and 90s. They were having it easier when this was made illegal than they had done for years.
00:12:10
Speaker
A lot of the hunt anti-hunt activists had moved on to other campaigns or had... decided enough was enough. They forced an act through Parliament and the job done. And it was now over to the state via the police to to enforce this. So there was actually a massive drop off in numbers of Huntsam tours in the amount of um groups around the country, in the amount of resources and money that was available to the movement.
00:12:36
Speaker
Yeah, it was actually, it was a golden era for a few years. for for the hunt community, ironically. Then the anti-hunt movement began to re reform and regroup and re reemerge and go back onto the field in in bigger numbers.
00:12:53
Speaker
And the use of drones and other and other forms of technology have been used greatly. So the the the the script has flipped now. For instance, if you if you foot phone up the police and report that you see people out in a field sort of close by to you and you think they're hair coursers, the police will be on them like a ton of bricks.
00:13:14
Speaker
They will come down and they will arrest them and they will prosecute them. It will still only be fine, but because it's working class people doing it usually, or they they aren't as rich or anywhere near as well connected as the Foxconn community, to put it that way. if They aren't necessarily working class.
00:13:28
Speaker
It doesn't really matter anyway, but it matters to the police because it means they they're a lot less afraid to go after people that they see as beneath them rather than those that they see as above them, which is those in the fox hunting fraternity. Well, I would say we when researching the show in mainstream media, and I will
Corruption and Enforcement Issues
00:13:45
Speaker
include include things like Farming UK and Farmers Weekly in that as well, but certainly on the BBC...
00:13:51
Speaker
The but wildlife crimes that we see reported are far more hair coursing compared to fox hunting.
00:14:01
Speaker
I mean, you you do see fox hunting stuff reported in in those publications, but but very, very rarely. But hair coursing, I would say, pops up once a month. and And that's just doing a superficial scan of things.
00:14:16
Speaker
So it it bears out in the media too. Oh, it is fascinating to see ah the language used and the tone taken by the likes of... Farmers Weekly when describing these people. They are now described as ah wildlife criminals, as thugs, as this and that. The police came down and arrested them and isn't that great.
00:14:35
Speaker
It wasn't long ago when these people had their their own clubs and membership ah groups and little badges and had the full sanction of the law to do what they were doing. So the Hunting with Dogs Act, which which also outdoed coursing, has had a dramatic effect on the the whole scheme of things.
00:14:52
Speaker
It wasn't the end of hunting as people hoped it would be, but it was the beginning of the end of hunting. It's taken until now for another government to come in, this time a Labour government, and they have said, i don't think it was in their manifesto, but they have said publicly, vocally, that they would look at the loopholes, i.e. trail hunting, and close them the way they're they're doing or have done in Scotland, which is a standalone parliamentary and legal system there.
00:15:19
Speaker
So the the ah news is is slowly tightening on it. but it isn't quite there yet. So the hunt saboteurs are still ah heavily active and a lot of their resources go into ah monitoring the hunts as well as sabotaging the hunts.
00:15:34
Speaker
Since the 2020, since thes two thousand and five act there're at the the Hunt Saboteurs Association has successfully prosecuted 70 separate individuals for for breaking the Hunting with Dogs Act.
00:15:48
Speaker
the police, try try and guess how how many the vastly and much more resourced and peopled police have successfully pushed through low guests, right? So the Hunsabs with their but no physical office, hardly any money in comparison, right?
00:16:05
Speaker
you know 100k a year or something like that ah right and all that ah they have prosecuted so so successfully 70 cases the police have prosecuted how many uh well but because of the way you've teed it up i'm gonna guess it's in single figures single figures Single, for you were one. One successful prosecution of fox hunters. There's been a lot more, as we discussed, of lower-class blood sports, particularly coursing. That's really borne the brunt of of the law. The rich have, as usual, slipped away and above and beyond things.
00:16:38
Speaker
But because of the outrage caused by, particularly ah Channel 4, have been doing a number of exposรฉs particularly on on a hunt in Warwickshire, who they exposed as having had entered into a secret arrangement with the local police that allowed them to carry on hunting, the police turn a blind eye.
00:16:55
Speaker
Very corrupt. It all surprises me when you sort of come across people who are very kind conspiratorial minded and into the matrix, blue pilling, red pilling, illusions, reality, all that. They're very happy to sort of consider very fantastical ends end of that spectrum. When it comes to animal abuse, whether it's the meat industry, the dairy industry, blood sports, the matrix couldn't be clearer.
00:17:20
Speaker
but they never ever engage with that on any level. They're they're quite happy to talk about a Keanu Reeves-style matrix system, but they will completely ignore the meat industry, particularly. And for fox hunting, and the whole scene is a nexus of the establishment. It's where the establishment come to meat, and when you add Hun Saboteurs into the mix, it really sort of rounded off the sort of social profile.
00:17:42
Speaker
And you had a microcosm of how the establishment and the system works happening in front of your eyes when you were going out sabotaging Hunt, the fore was made a illegal, particularly. so The matrix is all there. The illusion of the dairy industry, of of the necessity of milk, of the sort of the the need for for protein from meat, all these things. The way the police and the state sort of ah interact with the hunting fraternity, all all this matrix in front of them is completely ignored. you know It's all struck me as quite an irony because they don't need to watch movies to get a matrix. they They could go out onto a Huntsad.
00:18:21
Speaker
and see the whole thing in front you. Yeah, as you're saying all of that, and and particularly when when we were talking about the the power dynamics, I suppose, all of dominance, of hunting, of of kind of having dominion over your surroundings,
00:18:40
Speaker
It feels like they're ah there are unmet needs and there are strong forces at play that are at the core of all of this. And changing the law 20 odd years ago has led to a change in behaviour, but...
00:18:55
Speaker
we're seeing still a lot of the same things going on or that it manifests itself in slightly different ways but it's it's still not great i'm just wondering with what the the current labor government in the uk has said they will do there doesn't seem to be a huge deal of movement yet there's been a little bit of talk but 12 months on nothing's really happened as far as i can see anyway I'm just wondering, a would they get something through? Would we have like a big pushback like we're seeing with the family farm tax at the moment, the sort of inheritance tax on folk that own large amounts of farming land?
00:19:37
Speaker
But like what what do we think could be the response to, let's say there's just a blanket ban on trail hunting too.
00:19:47
Speaker
How's that going to manifest itself? Because you've still got an infrastructure there of people who make a living from this. And if it's not their living, it's their passion, it's their social status, it's it's a significant part of their life.
00:20:03
Speaker
And they're people who are used to being in control and having what they want. Like, that they're not just going to let it drop and say, all right, then we'll go and play Subutio then or start Dry Stone Walling or whatever. How's how's that going to squeeze itself out and and manifest itself in the world, I wonder?
00:20:21
Speaker
I think what what adds most fuel to the fire is when their arrogance is exposed for what it is. And that comes out most when they're pushed into a corner. So now that it's illegal and there is mounting. Right. So the the case of the Warwickshire hunt, as I was talking about a few minutes ago, the outrage there seems as much to be the way the police are being duped.
00:20:42
Speaker
and therefore the general public had been duped about what the hunt's intentions are so there was there was basically an expose that the chief of police in warwickshire had uh been having private talks with the the head of the warwickshire hunt in order to allow the hunt to continue essentially hunting the lower down police in the in that force are outraged by what is happening there and they consider the water hunter being organized crime group they described them as that as such on Channel 4 News and they are outraged that they their that their boss is kowtowing to an OCG, an organized crime group, be it this case a hunt. it's It's stuff like that, it's features like that that really piss people off.
00:21:24
Speaker
It's one thing to go out and show your dominance and rip up a poor fox in full view of everyone and and cheer it on. It's one thing to do that, and that is an outrage. It seems to be even more of a slap in the face when the police force are acting as a private security force for a local hunt.
00:21:43
Speaker
And that really adds a real indignity to it that is intolerable to even more people. than the animal abuse side of it. and So it's stuff like that that will be the breaking point. It's their arrogance, it's their reluctance to read the room, to obey the law, to accept social consensus.
00:22:00
Speaker
It's changed now dramatically than what it was during the 1970s, say. So I think their downfall will be their insufferable arrogance and they have shades of it.
00:22:12
Speaker
Yes, I think, I mean, i'm i'm generally by nature an optimistic person, but there's just part of me that that feels like they' there will just be another insidious way that that this manifests itself if these loopholes are ah tightened. And I mean, I don't know whether it's just the circles that I move in or you know my algorithm online but it does feel like there was a fair amount of noise in the build-up to the election and since you know so in in the last 12 to 18 months or so we have seen a lot of talk about like oh no trail hunting is going to be banned it's it's you know you're not even going to be allowed to do that and so ah kind of think well
00:22:55
Speaker
it ought to go through that and there's been enough noise about it that it ought to happen. But I don't know, i just, I find it really hard to, believe even even I completely get what you're saying about individuals and groups do fall down and they do disassemble. I mean, we reported on the show back in May that the Hunt Sabs released stats of the number of hunts that have joined forces this season because there's not enough numbers to justify what they're doing.
00:23:28
Speaker
So instead of there being a North Shropshire hunt and a South Shropshire hunt, now there is just the Shropshire hunt. So like whilst we're seeing things like that, that's different to there being an edict saying, ah you can't go out and call yourself a hunt at all anymore. And that that's really the biggest loophole, isn't it?
00:23:48
Speaker
The fact that you can still dress up, you can still do everything other than encourage lots of dogs to go after something that's grey enough that folk will obviously still abuse it.
00:24:01
Speaker
Yeah, of course, yeah. I mean, you ah you mentioned there about the the the amalgamations of local hunts into... bigger, smaller hunts actually. The hunt that I used to say most often back in the 90s and early 2000s was the Vale of Aylesbury hunt in Hertfordshire and near a town called Aylesbury. That was where I was born, interestingly enough. Oh, really? Okay. see So it was a we we used to meet in Amersham at the train station there and then go from there to various places around Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire.
Elite Influence on Hunting Ban
00:24:34
Speaker
but ah typically Sabine the Vale of Valesbury, who had been receiving attention from from the saboteurs since the 1970s, had been in existence for about 200 years.
00:24:45
Speaker
ah They folded and a few years after we add the band came through. and they well what What happened is is they they will amalgamate. They will be brought out by other hunts, and the hunt that they were they were absorbed by was itself an absorption of two other hunts.
00:25:02
Speaker
So you had the Garth, you had the East Bucks, and the Vale of Aylesbury, three separate fox hunts, now are one hunt called the Kimberwick Hunt. group Where you used to have three, you now have one. um the The amount of fox hunt clubs in formal existence at the start of the Hunt Service Association existence in the mid 1960s was about 250 plus.
00:25:24
Speaker
Now it's ah about, it's falling all the time. It's probably about 116 now. So there's still loads them about, but a lot less than initially at the start of the direct action sort of movement. And it's it's falling all the time. But as you say, it it should have been a ah much quicker sort of elimination of this behaviour.
00:25:43
Speaker
And were any other class engaging in it primarily, it would have been. But because these people make the law, write the law, can prevent the law, a lot of them are in the House of Lords, And it was the House of Lords obviously that there was there was saying no to this bill becoming an act three times in a row until the House Commons superseded them in a rarely invoked Parliament Act itself in order to progress with democratic consensus. So these people are the they are the elite, you know, and
00:26:15
Speaker
to get them to or obey the law that they consider themselves to be above and to fall in line with social consensus, it it just isn't their thing. And they can buy people out.
00:26:25
Speaker
They are the judges. They are the magistrates. They often are the chief of police in their area, or they know these people very, very well. So it's it's all very chummy. It's all very public school.
00:26:37
Speaker
It's all very, I mean, if you're into the Illuminati, you would have a field day with these guys, you know, because they're so conspiratorial, so sinister and opaque.
00:26:48
Speaker
And they never give any information away voluntarily unless they're forced to and they're bastards. And so it's a long struggle and it might take another decade for it to be finally put to rest.
00:27:02
Speaker
And imagine the energy that could be unleashed on the rest of the animal rights movement and the environmental movement of all these saboteurs with all their experience of handling the media and aggression and formulating tactics and working out how best to i mean in order to sabotage a hunt you have to learn how hunting works so it wasn't just going out and doing anything you really had to do something that was there was ah that was effective so they they started from the ground up and built it the most effective movement probably that the grassroots animal direct action movement has ever seen
00:27:33
Speaker
So it's hat it's hats off to the hunt saboteurs, would say. And they they ah continue to operate, of course, as gatherers of evidence as well as saboteurs these days. So the the script is slowly changing, but it wasn't the quick fix that we were hoping against hope for when the and bill became an act in 2005. Can I ask, and kind of going back to that period, obviously it went through in 2005, but was there a sense, obviously you were very much involved in the movement um back then, was there a sense in the preceding years that something was
Build-up to Hunting Act 2005
00:28:07
Speaker
coming? like and And how far back can you trail that? How much build-up was there to it it finally coming into law?
00:28:15
Speaker
So in the mid-1990s, when Tony Blair and New Labour were making noises and the Tory party, who had been in power for three election terms, very jaded, highly corrupt, everyone was looking forward to something new. And New Labour were promising a that they would have a free vote on a an anti-hunting bill that was being pushed through by a guy called Michael Foster, Labour MP.
00:28:40
Speaker
He was very genuine about his concern about the ah plight of of foxes and hunted animals. A lot of the people around him were supporting him, as I said earlier, because they were more interested the class issue and kicking the Tories in the balls after the miners' strike.
00:28:55
Speaker
So there was there was word in the air in in the air around 1997 around this, and people were very excited. It was the first time, really, that a plausibly electable party were making promises like this. They also promised a lot on vivisection. They promised a royal inquiry into that. They didn't deliver on that.
00:29:13
Speaker
But they did allow the ah free vote to go ahead in the House of Commons. It won. It went through three times. It had to be repeated three times because So even though won overwhelmingly, when newt when when New Labour was swept into power, every Labour MP was against foxhunting, practically.
00:29:30
Speaker
And there was loads of them now in in ah in parliaments. The first time it went through the House of Commons, it won hands down, but it got pushed back by the House of Lords, the unelected, undemocratic, ruling class House of Lords chucked it back, of course. Literally called the House of Lords as opposed to the House of Commons. that You couldn't make it up. and You couldn't make it up. And for a place to pride yourself as the mother of all democracies, having the House of Lords, digital democracy like that, is a disgrace.
00:29:57
Speaker
So, of course, they sent it back saying there's no way we're passing this and it had be passed through them as well before it became an act. So it went through again a second time, again a third time, it kept on getting knocked back. In 1911, when the House of Lords were doing this to a bill that was being pushed through by the Liberal government in order to bring in stuff like sick pay and ah better care for the working classes and all that, the system couldn't handle it. and brought in a ah get out clause where the House of Lords are are only allowed to reject a bill coming through from the House of Commons three times in a row before it is then forced through. It's only been used, it was it had only been used once before in its whole century of existence. this It's called the Parliament Act. It allowed the House of Commons to override the House of Lords.
00:30:39
Speaker
It had only ever been used at once in 1911 when it was ah formed for a very particular purpose purpose then. And again in 2005 when it needed to be used. to override the undemocratic, ah highly suspect House of Lords continually rejecting what is clearly public consensus and had been since polls have been done on this. I mean, since early polls have been taken on Fox Center in particular, 70 plus, 80 plus percent of the general public have been against it, including the majority people in rural areas, despite what the Countryside Alliance would say.
00:31:10
Speaker
So again, it's it sort of exposes the system for the anti-democratic strain within it, as in the heart the power of the House of Lords has. And if something isn't agreeable to them, they can just paper shred democracy, basically, and completely ignore the will of the people, the will of the people's elected representatives, and the will of those people's votes.
00:31:32
Speaker
So as I say, hunting, blood sports, particularly fox hunting, are a nexus of of the establishment where they all come together to do something that they all have an interest in. And it's quite a primeval interest. I think they enjoy the bloodlust.
00:31:47
Speaker
They enjoy the show show of dominance, the hobnobbing, the control of animals around them, including the the lower classes that they force to to do their dirty work, including attacking the saboteurs. The way the police kowtow to them, it's embarrassing to watch. I've been out in so many sabs and watching the police, both normal cops on the ground and higher-ups, the deference they have for these people. How they look at the sounds at themselves in the mirror in the morning and go out and behave like that.
00:32:17
Speaker
They are like butlers. It's like watching an episode of Upstairs and Downstairs. you know it was you You were embarrassed for them. you know You think, fuck me. Is this why you're doing to do what that cunt and the horse is telling you what to do?
00:32:30
Speaker
you know it was and It was unbelievable. And ah you almost felt sorry for them. And they were their their pent-up rage was taken out on the saboteurs around them. you know And they felt the embarrassment too.
00:32:43
Speaker
They knew the shits that they were being. they They knew how how on sorts of how this flew in the face of the sort of principles of policing in a democracy. you know they They felt like little runts and they took that aggression out on us.
00:32:58
Speaker
But ah the the the at tide has turned, I must say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, listening to to all of this, it's um there's clearly big chunks of that that are so and an embarrassing stain on on but the history and the and the systems.
00:33:17
Speaker
of the United Kingdom and you know let's let's hope for a time in the not too distant future when we can be doing ah another look back at the way things were um it whilst we're sat in a present where this is this is even more tightly scrutinized and and policed and and and is not happening because the the the fact is that there's there's always going to be elements of society that have a proclivity towards cruelty to animals there does some seem to be something in in human nature you know we are animals too there does so seem to be something that can lead some people if things are lined up in a certain way such that you will take out your unmet needs on on animals and that will
00:34:05
Speaker
always be there to an extent but there are things that we can do culturally legally to minimize it and that you know that if the needle is pointing in a particular direction then fewer animals are going to suffer that's that's just the reality isn't it so that's what we can hope for that's what we can hope for Thank you so much
Mark's Book Promotion
00:34:26
Speaker
for that, Mark. And indeed, thank you for for all of our special episodes that we've we've featured this summer. They've been they've been absolutely fantastic to to be part of. I know listeners will have enjoyed them too. Some listeners may not be aware that you have a book that features on a specific part of history. Do you want to just tell folk about that and and how they can get hold of it if they would like a copy?
00:34:49
Speaker
Of course. So the book is called The Humanity Trigger, published by Earth Island Books in the UK, available on Amazon and online generally worldwide and in radical bookstores and some not so radical peppered around the world.
00:35:04
Speaker
ah Easiest is online. It explores the two centuries of animal activism in Ireland between the years 1822 1822. and 2022. I know that sounds very specific, but if you get the book, you will see exactly why it starts then. And it explores the evolution of the vegetarian and vegan restaurant scene in Ireland, its links with the nascent IRA pre-1916, the evolution of the animal liberation front, of the hunt sabotage movements, and of the eclectic vegan characters that crop up in Irish history.
00:35:38
Speaker
And it is an inspiration and a celebration of those movements and those people's lives. It is a unique book. It's an amalgamation of all the publicly available information on that topic um on that topic that is out there online.
00:35:53
Speaker
So I encourage people to go and buy it. And it's a great read. It's full of very unheard of facts and rare stories. And my my part of the story is told in some detail as well. Fantastic. And credit to you for amalgamating all of that. that's ah That's brilliant. of A real boon to the movement. And yeah, like you say, a great read for for those interested in such things.
00:36:19
Speaker
Fantastic stuff. Thank you, Mark, for today. And again, thank you for the last few episodes too. That's brilliant.
00:36:30
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.
00:36:45
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.
00:37:11
Speaker
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00:37:36
Speaker
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00:37:46
Speaker
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