Well be back, warns Countryside Alliance
21 July 1999
We’ll be back, warns Countryside Alliance
By FWi staff
THE Countryside Alliance has warned that a re-run of last years Countryside March is a distinct possibility because of rising rural frustration with the government.
The resurrection of Labours pre-election pledge to ban hunting appears to have spurred the organisation into action after months away from the headlines.
An alliance spokesman said ministers were risking a recurrence of last years demonstration which saw 280,000 protesters march through central London.
“If the government presses ahead with this there will be a bigger and angrier demonstration than the Countryside March,” he told Farmers Weekly.
The alliances new task force has already announced plans for a pro-hunting demonstration at the Labour Party Conference in Bournemouth this September.
Rural people will be also taking their grievances about the proposed hunting ban and other subjects to MPs surgeries in key constituencies throughout the country.
“Its all feeling again like it was last year – a lot of issues are coming together,” the spokesman said.
“Dairy producers have been hit with cuts, farming is still declining in terms of incomes and small abattoirs are closing because of new regulations almost daily.”
Sam Butler, chairman of the alliances task force, said: “Such is peoples anger that spontaneous local protests are already cropping up in the capital and across the land.”
“This is just the start of what will be a sustained and targeted fight back by rural people.”
The pro-hunting lobby claims that 16,000 jobs, including those of farriers and kennel-hands, would be lost if the government banned hunting with hounds.
But the Countryside Protection Group, (CPG) which represents farmers who have had problems with their local hunt, claims most rural people want hunting outlawed.
“At the end of the day, the majority of the countryside will be heard,” wrote CPG director Elaine Fairfax in a recent newsletter.
“Perhaps we are now seeing a firm commitment from the government to bring an end to this barbaric sport.”