BY NIGEL BEAN & PAUL READ

At the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Geneva last August, many Southern African Development Community (SADC) nations felt humiliated by the way they were treated by wealthy western governments looking to secure ‘victories’ for animal rights groups/charities and NGO’s.

Animal Rights Groups have a clear strategy – to apply intense pressure on bodies of authority and if a body gives into the pressure and favours the agenda of animal rights this is celebrated as a victory for animal rights. This quest for public victories is now a part of everyday life in the UK, with animal rights groups daily targeting town councils to ban fox hunt meets from their land, targeting universities over the sale of beef products or their shooting grounds, and targeting hotels for taking bookings for shooting parties or use of their conferences halls by hunting groups.

The UK has succumbed to a series of toxic headlines of late through a technique known as ‘swarming’ where members of an authority or commercial enterprise/body are harassed, bullied and smeared until they bend to the will of the animal rights lobby and their extremist outriders. The Animal Rights lobby uses a two-faced strategy – that of suit-wearing conferences and the balaclava’d option of terrorism.

Extremist Outriders? Here’s an example of swarming for the hunting man on the street:

Swarming is nothing new. The origins of this strategy of ‘swarming’ were first noted in 1951 in a government inquiry into fox hunting – referring to members of the public being invited to send in letters to their respective member of parliament. Here is an extract from the British Government Inquiry into fox hunting, 1951:

*‘There are, on the other hand, some organisations which have been formed solely for the purpose of securing the prohibition of a particular sport or all field sports. In the main such organisations seek to convert public opinion to their point of view by pamphlet, advertisements and press propaganda, and by Parliamentary action instigated by pressure on Members of Parliament which is both direct and indirect, through letters which constituents are invited to send to their representatives. Such organisations do not as a rule themselves investigate the facts of the practices to which they object, and the evidence they placed before us was for the most part based on reports appearing in the Press or other publications`.

A report commissioned by the British Government made publicly available in Oct 2019 called ‘Challenging Hateful Extremism’ shows animal rights extremism in the top five of witnessed extreme acts. So nothing has changed then.

At CITES – after the decision was taken to raise the status of protection to giraffes to Level 2 – the next morning toy giraffes appeared on delegates desks, placed there by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). This immature approach to wildlife management and conservation is very much a part of U.K. animal rights practices. The Animal Rights Lobby wants to portray itself as the good guys – as soft and cuddly – to ensure it gets the funds it needs to its charities. It wants to hide its balaclava’d bully boys who fight their battle on the ground.

Below: Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn with Toy Panda – what animal rights groups want you to see.

Above: the balaclava’d thugs from Cheshire Hunt Saboteurs who threatened Steve Leonard, who animal rights political swarmers disassociate from .

In 1997 IFAW donated one million pounds to the Labour Party to promote animal rights legislation including a fox hunting ban. This donation was made through a newco called the political animal lobby (PAL) in a blatant attempt to hide connections to IFAW. Many were disgusted including some of IFAW’s own workers at this blatant bung including Boris Johnson’s father, Stanley. He wrote to the Palace of Westminster with his disgust and this is recorded in Hansard, the diary of Westminster Parliamentary debate:

“Don’t let anyone tell you this was not a quid pro quo exchange. It was. I have the clearest recollection of having lunch in the garden of my farm in Somerset and answering the telephone from the United States to be informed that IFAW officials had done a deal with Peter Mandelson and Jonathon Powell whereby IFAW would put up one million pounds and the Labour Party would make a manifesto commitment on hunting”

The payment became known in the U.K. as the ‘bung for a ban’. Fast forward to 2019 and Jeremy Corbyn has recently announced a manifesto commitment to increase penalties for illegal hunting to 5 years in prison and to restrict shooting. Now the UK hunting community awaits the Conservative manifesto with trepidation – the Conservative Party has also been compromised by animal rights lobbyists with certain MPs paying out fortunes to animal rights groups.

For Steve Leonard’s very measured reply to the animal rights thugs of Cheshire you can read here.