BY BRIAN MONTEITH
Is the Jolly Fisherman really under threat? The town mascot of bracing Skegness, created in 1908 by the Great Northern Railway to encourage day-trippers and holidaymakers to wet their feet in the resort’s lapping North Sea waves, has been condemned by the animal rights group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals).
Shock, outrage, and impossible demands that have no reasonable possibility of being met are the default strategy of today’s activist organisations. It is a business model designed to drive donations rather than achieve any societal change. The tactics these protest groups and many charities employ are all very similar: find an emotive issue you can use to attract media attention and watch the followers donate.
Denounce, ridicule, and attack aggressively—all are part of their playbook. This is so much easier than the hard slog of changing laws or regulations that might make a real difference. PETA is the worst offender.
A few weeks ago, it was railing against the Prince and Princess of Wales for having the audacity to allow their pet cocker spaniel to have a litter of puppies. PETA denounced the royals as being ‘staggeringly out of touch’ and of ‘churning out puppies’ while the Princess was receiving treatment for cancer.
Cue headlines across the media splashing their attack. No doubt donations spiked—job done. The fact that the royals were simply teaching their children the importance of loving animals gets swept aside.
Attacking the names of various British pubs is another ploy of PETA. Anything to do with cock-fighting, foxes, British bulldogs is fair game (excuse the pun). Of course, the likelihood of a publican relenting to PETA’s approaches is very slim. Indeed, as drinkers rally to the defence of their local watering hole, not only does the maintenance of the current name become a racing certainty, but the publican’s takings invariably improve as new customers seek to show their solidarity. But PETA is not interested in winning; it’s interested in headlines, and moves on to another community’s beloved pub.
Berating traditional and iconic representations of our past to bring about change is not PETA’s goal. All these vegan zealots want is to weaponise the cultural attitudes of omnivores (vegetarians are a sell-out, in case you hadn’t realised) so that the small minority who might identify with them become signed-up, direct-debiting disciples.
In the UK, PETA runs no cat or dog homes, no animal sanctuaries or rescue centres—it exists purely to divide society at the expense of real animal welfare.
The skipping, happy-go-lucky Jolly Fisherman statue does not offend any fish; that is a nonsense worthy of Edward Lear or Spike Milligan. The character’s existence merely offends a minority of a minority—those militant vegans who cannot accept that, so long as fish eat other fish, millions of humans think it perfectly acceptable to enjoy their fish and chips, smoked salmon, and Lemon Sole à la meunière.
I have vegan friends. When I dine at their table, I respect their opinion and am happy to eat the dishes of their preference. When they dine at mine, I prepare vegan dishes for them, and they respect my preference for eating the flesh, eggs, or dairy products of cows, pigs, fowl, and seafood.
PETA cannot stomach such tolerance.
The clickbait campaigning of PETA activists shows no respect for anyone—and certainly not animals. Their approach is harmful to animal welfare because this business model doesn’t just amplify PETA’s profile for fundraising efforts but also sidelines more constructive voices in the charity sector whose hands-on work saves the lives of animals. Animal rights activists squeeze out coverage of charities that do the unglamorous but vital work of helping animals in need.
Protests at Crufts, NFU conferences, airlines such as TUI, and agricultural shows are deliberately incendiary. Zoos that specialise in the conservation of species are compared to slave plantations, while milk consumption is suggested to have an unfounded link to autism in children. The use of sensory dogs for the blind or hard of hearing, cadaver or drug dogs for the solving or prevention of crime, are all condemned as breaching animal rights.
The truth that PETA never acknowledges is that if we did not work with the help of some animals, if some of us did not eat certain animals, they would no longer exist. In our often cruel world, where animals eat other animals—and some simply kill others for fun (have you ever seen chickens killed by a fox?)—there would be no place for many animals we currently take for granted. They simply would not be able to exist.
If we choose to eat animals, we should respect them and follow nose-to-tail principles of using every part of their body. What we should not do is treat them cruelly or threaten their existence by consuming only part of their body. That’s why catching and disposing of sharks merely for their fins is so abhorrent.
But PETA is not genuinely interested in improving the welfare of animals. If it were, it would be seeking to change the law that currently allows the religious slaughter of livestock without pre-stunning. Yes, PETA states it is against halal slaughter—but only in the context of it being against all slaughter of animals for human consumption. Frankly, that’s a cop-out, a body swerve. Without stunning, halal and kosher meat should be taken off the dining table.
Until PETA launches a campaign to change the law on halal slaughter instead of virtue-signalling about the Jolly Fisherman or the Fighting Cocks, it stands condemned as grifting on the backs of animal cruelty and should be shunned by companies like Unilever, The Body Shop, and Ecotricity, who—astonishingly—have partnerships with this extremist group.
We should be clear about what PETA is—not a partner in constructive progress, but a militant ideological movement whose methods undermine the very cause it claims to support.
Brian Monteith is an advisor to PETAWatch.com and a former member of the Scottish and European parliaments.