Blair fox hunting claims slammed as 'nonsense'

In his memoirs, published on Wednesday, the former Prime Minister describes the fox hunting ban as one of his main regrets.

He admits in his book ‘A Journey’ that he was ‘ignorant’ about fox hunting and underestimated the strength of public feeling about it. He claims he ensured the Hunting Act was ‘a masterly British compromise’ that left enough loopholes to allow hunting to continue.

“The passions aroused by the issue were primeval,” he wrote. “If I’d proposed solving the pension problem by compulsory euthanasia of every fifth pensions I’d have got less trouble… By the end of it, I felt like the damn fox,” he writes.

“I had a complete lapse. I didn’t ‘feel it’ either way. I didn’t feel how, for fox hunters, this was part of their way of life. I didn’t feel how, for those wanting a ban, this was fundamentally about cruelty. Result? Disaster.”

But the Countryside Alliance dismissed the suggestion that Mr Blair somehow made life easier for the pro-hunting lobby and said the comments typified his ‘delusion’.

“To anyone with the most limited understanding of the Parliamentary process that put the Act on the Statute Book this is complete and utter nonsense,” the alliance said on its website.

“This was not ‘a masterly British compromise’ it was a craven retreat from evidence and logic for short term political ends.

The Government had published a Bill in 2002 that did not seek to ban fox hunting but would have allowed it and other activities to continue if they could meet twin tests based on ‘utility’ and ‘cruelty’. The Bill would have banned stag hunting and coursing outright.

However Labour MPs rejected the Government’s proposals for licensing and turned the Bill into a complete ban on all hunting.

The House of Lords staunchly opposed the Bill, putting Mr Blair in a ‘remarkably strong position to push through a classic New Labour ‘middle way’ resolution’, the alliance said. But he allowed the Parliament Act to used in 2004 to overrule peers and push the Act through in order to appease Labour MPs who were becoming disenchanted with him over Iraq and other unpopular policies.

“Tony Blair’s re-writing of history is not going to fool anyone,” the alliance said. “He, and he alone, was responsible for the rejection of the ‘middle way’ proposals for licensed hunting and the passing of a complete ban on all hunting.”

“A compromise was on the table, but by bringing back the Hunting Bill as a complete ban in a timetable that allowed the Parliament Acts to be used he created one of the most illiberal, ineffective and wasteful laws of modern times. The fact that he knew what he was doing was wrong makes his actions more reprehensible, not less.”

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