Why a large Tory majority hasn’t helped fox hunting.

Today’s Hunting Leaks publication of an internal document from the Hunting Office reveals some very interesting concerns:

“Owing to the failure to adequately counter the incorrect allocation of blame to the hunting issue for the Conservatives’ poor performance in the 2017 General Election, it is now almost inconceivable that there will be any mention of hunting in the next Conservative manifesto (or by individual MPs or candidates during the campaign) and we would be foolish even to try to ask for it.”

A similar point was made in the 2019 September MFHA meeting, from those minutes:

“Concerns were expressed that there was no longer a relationship with ‘Number 10’ nor CCHQ. The Chairman was keen to renew these relationships and would liaise with Nick Herbert. It was highly unlikely that Hunting would feature in a Conservative manifesto, not least as many Conservative MPs blamed hunting (quite incorrectly) for the disappointing election result in 2017.”

The Hunting Office had several election aims, one was:
“Try to attain a five year “safe-zone”, with a small Conservative majority, in which we can then begin the work of regaining credibility in the hearts and minds of politicians, the public and the media which we have lost via a combination of too many bad news stories and no positive PR since 2004"

“This will require an active commitment, led by example, from the Hunting Office and Hunting Association Committees to persuade our supporters that even though this may not be what they were “promised” in previous elections, we still need to fight for it now. If we are not pragmatic in pursuing the best of what might be obtainable rather then pie-in-the-sky, we are guaranteed to end up with nothing.”

So what happened? the Tory party managed a landslide victory and with enough pro hunting people within the party an overturning of the hunting ban should be easy. Simply it was the general public’s outpouring of revulsion when Theresa May backed a repeal of the hunting act.

Then late last year the webinars revealed that trail hunting was in fact just a smokescreen for fox hunting, the tories stepped in and George Eustice said “there’s a settled agreement that the Hunting Act should stay”.

Fox hunting needs a drastic makeover, hunts need to be seen to be acting entirely within the law and not trying to get away with fox hunting by using smokescreens, this is clearly something that some people within the hunting community are working towards but others steadfastly refuse. In our opinion it will be that refusal that brings them all down.