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Fox Hunters Ride Through City to Fight Ban

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Fifty hunters on horseback rode through central London on Wednesday blowing their horns and bringing traffic to a halt in protest against government moves to ban the ancient countryside pursuit of fox hunting.


Sporting shiny riding boots, skin-tight jodhpurs and traditional red hunting jackets, the riders staged a replica of a protest more than 50 years ago when farmers rode through the capital to fight against a similar proposed ban.

"I was here in 1949 when I rode on a farmers' protest against exactly the same thing..," said 73-year-old Dan Barton. "They tried to do it to us then, and now they are trying to do it again."

Despite overwhelming support by members of parliament -- including Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair himself -- for a ban on fox hunting, the government has so far shied away from outlawing it in the face of stiff opposition from rural lobby groups and the upper chamber of parliament, the House of Lords.

In a statement widely written off as a fudge, rural affairs minister Alun Michael said in March that the government would "consult" on the divisive issue for six months to try and "search for common ground."

Fox hunting has been practiced in Britain for more than 300 years. Hunters on horses chase foxes across the countryside with a pack of hounds until the fox is caught and killed by the dogs.

Opponents of the sport say it is cruel, barbaric and completely out of place in a modern society.

But supporters -- including royal heir Prince Charles -- say hunting is a service to farmers who regard foxes as vermin, and that it maintains thousands of rural jobs.

Alex Ford, who rides with the Llangeinor Hunt in South Wales, slammed the "urban bigotry" of those calling for a ban, saying they knew nothing about the countryside.

"The politicians who want to destroy our jobs know nothing of our way of life, but want to interfere in it because of the spin they swallow whole from the anti-hunters," he said. "It's time to beat urban bigotry. We will never accept a ban."

Conservative member of parliament James Gray, who represents the North Wiltshire region in the rural west of England, met the protesters outside the House of Parliament where they handed him a letter to be delivered to Blair.

He promised to make sure Blair got the letter and heard the message: "Whether he will listen or not, I don't know, but the countryside will keep on shouting about it until such time as he does listen," he told reporters.

In the 1949 protest -- against the then Labour government of Prime Minister Clement Attlee -- farmers rode on horseback through some of London's most famous areas, Piccadilly, Regent Street and Oxford Street. They became known as the Piccadilly hunt and a club of the same name still exists.

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