Thanks to all those who joined the Facebook group. The lastest news is that the TUC and the Countryside Alliance have come on board as partners. They will be helping publicise the Convention through their networks and supporting it where they can and the TUC will be running their own session (details soon).
New partners: TUC and Countryside Alliance
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Just a quick note. I’ve been taking a look at the website and it all seems great. I’ve always been a huge supporter of groups like Liberty and Open Democracy, so it is good you have them on board.
I realise that a project like this you want everyone on board and that the whole point is that everyone is entitled to opinions, which is why I’m not objecting to the inclusion of the Countryside Alliance in your organization, as I would hope other members might not object to other political organisation such as the TUC simply because they do not share its views.
We may well agree or disagree on their various causes (and indeed I do support some of them and oppose others), however I feel very strongly that they trivialized the entire liberty debate by suggesting that activities that were politically, scientifically and ethically opposed could be carried out simply because people had a right to do so. By that argument there are many forms of abuse that we would need to allow for the rights of individuals and liberty of any kind must surly have some fundamental boundaries? The so called “Liberty & Livelihood March” was exposed by Mark Thomas, himself a libertarian, as being a cover for a pro-bloodsports and politically motivated lobby. The use of the word liberty in this protest incensed me. So many people fight and die for real rights, to life and speech, not the rights to hurt and kill other sentinent creatures. Indeed various prominent CA supporters did at times state very publicly that ANY legislation of country sports would be a violation of liberty, despite the fact the the Countryside Alliance as it predecessor the BFSS were key in helping bring forward the CJA, which fundamentally criminalized anyone trying to disrupt their activities, even using peaceful methods from a public area, as well as severely curtailing the rights of travelers and other minority groups. You will no doubt remember the protests that went on in the mid nineties against this act.
I don’t want to be a thorn in the side, nor do I want to cause trouble for such a great organization and I also think it would be entirely wrong to exclude groups such as the CA, as they have a place in the debate like all do. However, I would like to express a strong note of caution, as their presence makes me incredibly uneasy and I know many other libertarians who would feel very much the same.
Hi Kevin,
Thanks for your thoughtful message. There are no doubt many others who feel the same way about the CA, but like you I think we need this to be a popular and broad-based movement if it’s to succeed and that inevitably means working with people who we may not have much in common with otherwise. Like it or not the CA have several hundred thousand members and they organised the second biggest protest in British history. It would be a powerful thing to energise these people on behalf of the cause of rights and freedoms and it stops people dismissing us as the “usual suspects”.
I do hope that we can avoid getting side-tracked into the debate about fox hunting here.
Guy
[...] Anthony Barnett: After Guy posted the news that the TUC and the Countryside Alliance are supporting the Convention, he got an email from Kevin, clearly uncomfortable about the Countryside Alliance claiming any part of the mantle of liberty. You can read it and Guy’s response HERE. [...]
Kevin
Mark Thomas, amusing as he always is, did not ‘expose’ anything about the Alliance. Claiming that we in anyway ‘cover up’ our campaign for hunting is like suggesting the Pope is a keeping his opposition to birth control under wraps. The catalyst for the ‘Liberty and Livelihood March’ was very overtly the threat to hunting although the concerns raised about the future of the countryside were much more widespread. And the CJA stuff is really a bit desperate.
The campaign for the repeal of the Hunting Act is a fundamental libertarian issue. It simply cannot be right that the House of Commons can legislate to ban an activity simply because it wants to take some misdirected party political revenge. That is why every serious newspaper opposed the Act along with every true libertarian who can separate people and activities he or she might not like from a political process which is clearly wrong.
More importantly in the context of Modern Liberty we support the fundamental principles of the convention and our activities and campaigns are consistent with that. Opposing restrictions on demonstrations in Westminster, challenging mis-use of personal data by Defra, campaigning against national vehicle tracking and road pricing, even halting Government plans to charge people for fishing in the sea…prosaic maybe but the Alliance consistently campaigns for liberty in the countryside and elsewhere.
Tim Bonner
Countryside Alliance
I agree with Kevin, if the Countryside Alliance are involved then I think will act as a barrier to any respected group joining. Are the BNP invited too after all they will have a couple of hundred follw too some may even say they are political! I wouldn’t though.
Guy -
I’m afraid the participation of the Countryside Alliance will completely de-value your efforts. They are a self-interested group campaigning against a democratically achieved ban on their form of animal abuse, i.e hunting with dogs. They also support the shooting industry and the use of snares. They support the use of terriers and lurchers to kill foxes (now illegal) and they are in favour of hare coursing (also now illegal).
Even if you find you can overlook cruelty to animals in some misguided belief that any group with a large membership, despite its remit, is worth having, then please spare a thought for the hunt monitors who go out and try and capture film of illegal hunting. The abuse and violence they suffer is disgraceful. There is a massive quantity of filmed evidence of this behaviour, and you should be aware of it.
Also, what about the rights of the people whose pets are savaged by hounds, whose children witness a fox being pulled to pieces in their garden, or in their school playground? These things happen every hunting season, even post-ban.
Frankly, the human rights movement has now totally lost my previous respect due to their shameful attitude to animal rights. I don’t like cruelty to either animals or humans. How can you only care about human suffering?
Sorry, but you can’t whitewash away the involvement of the Countryside Alliance. A nasty stain. Shame on you.
What about the civil liberties and rights of anti hunt people ? We don’t go around trying to repeal laws just because we don’t like them.
The Countryside Alliance is bloodsports organisation, formerly called the ‘British Field Sports Society’. When Michael Howard was taking through hard line laws to try and stop hunt sabs from stopping the hunters barbarity, where were the CA members and supporters?? Err.. they were willing him on from the ranks of the Tory party.
When Parliament acted on the will of the people and banned their henous ’sports’ the hunt thugs tried to invade Parliament, threw smoke bombs at police horses and so on.
Where also are the civil liberties for the elderly hunt monitors who record the actions of the hunt fraternity and are shuved into ditches and assaulted by these god awful people?
Bonner, in a desperate spin attempt to portray his organisation as some upholder of civil liberties, a huge joke, (is that why the BNP love the CA so much?) says ‘every true libertarian who can separate people and activities he or she might not like from a political process which is clearly wrong.’ Err excuse me its called democracy. There is no human right to be cruel and wishing to inflict torture on sentient creatures in the name of entertainment has nothing to do with civil liberties.
The CA can dress up their agenda all they want but their prescence at this conference is just another of their stunts, all designed to mask what they are beneath the suits and the spin.
Whats next for the conference? Badger baiters for civil liberties??
Tim Bonner will say anything to get that most barbaric of blood-sports back on the legal agenda. Fox hunting is an evil passtime that should have outlawed decades ago.
How anyone can support such a sick sport is beyond. All I can tell you about foxes is that these poor creatures are misunderstood and will continue to be so if hunters are allowed to continue spreading their propaganda bile.
As far as I’m concerned, civil liberties and the Countryside Alliance are mutually exclusive.
I remember well the demo the Countryside Alliance had in Parliament Square. There was an amazingly pally atmosphere with the cops, despite the fact that the CA brought along fireworks to a protest! Imagine what would have happened if other groups (anarchist for example) had done that – there would have been pandemonium and recriminations. The CA think they’re above everybody else – and to be in partnership with them for civil liberties is frankly an anathema and a disgrace.
Notice that one of the funders and people behind this convention is John Jackson, former chair of the…. Countryside Alliance and a founder member of that bloodsports organisation.
In February 2008, an independent survey of over 2,000 British people was carried out. Of these, 73% said that fox hunting should remain illegal. The House of Commons voted in favour of the Hunting Bill by 339 votes to 155. There is no doubt that the minority are unable to hunt as they please, but it is clear that an overwhelming majority of people are in favour of the ban on hunting with dogs.
Whether the Countryside Alliance like it or not, we live in a democracy. There is no violation of civil liberties here, merely proper application of the democratic process.
Their prescence at this conference is insulting to those attending who are genuinely in need of support.
The Criminal Justice and Public Order bill is dismissed by Tim Bonner as though he is talking to sychophants, if ever there was a politically vengful ban that was the one, when the then Conservative Government passed a law to outlaw British people even walking in the British countryside if it displeased the bloodsports mob and their imported collaborators.
The hunting ban was finally made law…. after several successful votes by anti-bloodsports MPs
The inclusion of the Countryside Alliance completely devalues this whole event. They have one aim and one aim only – to protect bloodsports and they will use any avenue available to them. In Janet George’s own words the rebranding of the BFSS to the CA was to bury hunting under a heap of other issues because “everybody hates hunting but loves the countryside”. If you actually believe that the CA give two penneth worth of thought to human rights then you are completely deluded. Tim Bonner may attempt to shrug off their involvement in the Public Order & Criminal Justice Act but those of us involved at the time know how deeply they pushed for Sections 68 & 69. To include them is to allow a watering down of the very real issues at stake. They are using you and at the same time turning your true supporters stomachs. You should extend the invitation to Nick Griffin and go the whole hog.
Countryside Alliance are only interested in the return of fox and stag hunting and hare coursing. They are simply a blood sports pressure group for the wealthy.
Vice Chairman of the Countryside Allicance Lord Mancroft has written in the Hunting Magazine:-
“The reason that we shall win the battle to preserve hunting and our way of life for future generations is simple. We will outlast our enemies. We will keep our hounds and horses, keep our wonderful staff, keep our communities together, keep our farmers’ and landowners’ support, and we shall put together the necessary resources, both financial and otherwise, to achieve all of this, and we shall continue to do this until this Government falls.”
Having the Countryside Alliance onboard destroys any notion of democracy, they simply rig any poll or vote online or via mobile phones.
Perhaps some of the anti Countryside Alliance comments here are from government spies carrying out divide and conquer psycho ops to try to stop everyone in the country who care about our ancient freedoms and happiness from joining together to stop the menace which is growing around us. I guess also that some comments are from genuine people and so perhaps the following quote from the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons made in national newspapers in June 2001 may help to heal this old festering wound between urbanites and country people.
“As members of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons we submit therefore that hunting by hounds is the most natural and humane way of controlling the population of all four quarry species, fox, deer, hare and mink in the countryside.
Humane, since at all times the wild animal remains in its natural environment and the relatively short period of physiological stress that may be suffered in the final phase of the hunt, followed by the almost instantaneous kill is not only acceptable but the preferred method of culling a wild animal. Hunting produces no wounded survivors. Hunting is the only method of culling that selectively maintains the health and vigour of a species and which allows the quarry species respite during the breeding season. Hunting is environmentally friendly not only to the quarry species but to other wildlife.” June 2001.
I have kept this newspaper quote and I could never understand why it was not the main focus of discussions at the time.
Dudes, if you don’t understand what real country people are like read “A Place in my Country” by Ian Walthew. Its a story of a publishing executive who is reluctantly transferred back to London from Paris. On the verge of a nervous breakdown, he flees his job and urban lifestyle to live in the Cotwolds. He and his wife appear to be living the rural dream, but it is their touching relationship with their struggling neighbour Norman – a ramshackle farmer, squeezed between weekenders’ pony paddocks and modern agricultural estates that begins to open Ian’s eyes to the rural realities.
Most people in the Countryside Alliance are people like Norman and people like him should be allowed to live their lives without The State hounding them and banging their doors down for money for Council Tax and the like. For it is people like Norman that the government hate with a vengence and want to destroy.
I just ask everyone to get off their hobby horses and work together because we really are not that different underneath and we really need this to work.
More spin from the hunters
Don Summers claims to provide a “quote from the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons” but it is actually a quote from the organisation Vets For Hunting – an organisation that represents a tiny proportion of the members of the RCVS.
How usual for a tiny minority’s opinion to be presented as representative of the majority.
The CA and their supporters cannot stomach the fact that the vast majority of the populace cannot understand their bloodlust and have legislated against it and they are attempting to make a laughable ‘human rights’ stand about it. How many of these people are members of Amnesty or have involved themselves in any human rights issues ever before?
Dougald Tidswell, the quote I used is as I said from the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and was in various newspapers which I cut out.
Dougald Tidswell if you really cared about animals you would have argued against 700 hours of parliamentary time being used to discuss 900 foxes when the time should have been used to complain about the 90 million ‘broiler’ chickens kept in truly cruel and abominable conditions.
If you really cared about foxes you would realise that the worst thing for a wild animal is to be held in a trap for days and that represents far more psychological stress where they have bitten off their own leg to get away.
If you really cared about foxes, you would care that shot foxes often die a slow and agonising death from gangrene in the undergrowth.
If you really cared about the health of the fox population you would care that shooting is indiscriminate and kills off the young healthy foxes as well as the mothers and old ones, whereas hunting kills the old, as the young healthy ones get away.
Foxes have to be culled because they have a fascination with killing. Anyone who has had some ducks or chickens will testify that they will kill everything and just take one to eat, that’s why they have to be culled.
Also if you really cared about democracy in this country you would get off your hobby horse and work together. This is not about the left versus the right, urbanites versus country people, black people versus white people, hippies versus crusties, folk music versus heavy metal or classical music or any other ‘divide and conquer’ separations of society have been encouraged to fester over the last years to prevent people working together. This is about Light versus darkness. Truth and liberty versus imprisonment and torture, freedom versus living in chains. You’ve got to decide which side you are on and if you are on the side of the Light, then stop playing the ‘useful idiot’.
Don – I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are just unaware of the truth rather than deliberatly lying.
The quote is from the Burns Report submission from Vets for Hunting (now rebranded as Vets for Wildlife Management).
Don’t believe me? Just put the quote into Google and this will be the first result
http://www.vet-wildlifemanagement.org.uk/pdf/VetOpinion.pdf
So there you are. PROVED wrong.
This organisation represents a tiny proportion (570) of the total membership of the RCVS so to attempt to portray that quote as coming from them is completely disingenuous.
That would be like me starting a pro-torture section of Amnesty and then issuing quotes on behalf of Amnesty saying torture is an acceptable tactic.
Tolerance is a splendid virtue and no one should object to another individual’s pleasure if the activity indulged in by that individual did no physical or emotional harm to any other individual. But tolerance does not mean that a minority can defy the moral standards of the majority. There is a balance to be struck between an individual’s freedom and the moral values of society as a whole.
Hunting falls into the same category of being pitiless and cruel as badger-baiting, cock-fighting, etc were. It is clear that a majority of people consider that hunting offends our sense of decency, regardless of how much pleasure it gives a certain minority.
The Countryside Alliance can only seek out the margins of these activities to hide the real horrors that exist.
The fox is taken not killed, FONT = Friends of the National Trust, sounds nice but is the pro-hunt pressure/information group to push for pro-hunt members on the NT Council. Then we have the Middle Way Group in parliament to push the pro-hunt arguments, all this spin is needed because of what it’s supporting.
Dougald, thank you for informing me that the quote is from the Burns Report submission from Vets for Hunting, I didn;t know that and it doesn’t invalidate what they said. But you didn’t respond to my other comments that “700 hours of parliamentary time being used to discuss 900 foxes when the time should have been used to complain about the 90 million ‘broiler’ chickens kept in truly cruel and abominable conditions”. and the other comments I made.
But I am sure we can bang on about the fors and against of fox hunting until kingdom come, but I’d prefer to do it in the pub rather than the gulag, so as Guy asked above that ‘I do hope that we can avoid getting side-tracked into the debate about fox hunting here.’ Because Dougald if you are a good guy, I do hope you can go beyond the fox hunting debate and realise we have a really big problem in this country and do not much time to deal with it. Whereas if you and the others are the bad guys, then you are doing a good job of closing down the real debate we should be having here. If you are the bad guys I would just say that trying to destroy this country may make you feel momentarily powerful but it will destroy you in the end, through allowing that level of darkness into your soul.
A wise person said recently that the next war will not be fought with guns and bullets but will be between the forces of light and darkness.
We all need to pray for our country. Prayer works as it immediately brings you into the Light and away from fear and ego, hate, and envy, greed and all the other manifestations of darkness. God bless everyone and God Bless you Dougald.
Don Summers: Perhaps some of the anti Countryside Alliance comments here are from government spies carrying out divide and conquer psycho ops to try to stop everyone in the country who care about our ancient freedoms and happiness from joining together to stop the menace which is growing around us.
Perhaps indeed. The government’s assault on civil liberties is the most pressing political issue of our times, and I welcome people from all parts of the political spectrum who ewant to keep Britain a free country, without the government snooping on us every time we make a phone call, send an email, or look at a web site.
I think Don is getting a bit fevered and I don’t want to incite him to further indiscretions. Suffice it to say to him that I and all other animal welfare campaigners I know are of course very concerned about all abuses of animals, and support the campaigns to put a stop to them
I would just ask people who are very concerned about vulnerable humans (even if their compassion does not extend to other species – shame on them) to consider a few things.
Last Saturday I attended a hunt, as a hunt monitor. I was there to try and film any breaches of the Hunting Act (from the roads and rights of way). There were three other female hunt monitors present on that day, and there were around a hundred hunters and their supporters. I was manhandled by a male hunt supporter after I filmed a fleeing fox. He stood directly in front of me, once actually standing on my feet, and then turned and forced me to lean back onto my car bonnet to avoid him. Not long afterwards three male hunt supporters took it in turns to stand in the road immediately in front of my car to prevent me moving on to where the hunt action had moved to. One of these deliberately threw himself down in front of my car and lay on the road – this was an attempt to make it appear that I had knocked him down. Later on, the hounds ran on cry straight across the road in front of my car. I stopped and got out and tried to film. The three male hunt stewards who were the occupants of the car behind me (which was constantly tailing me) jumped out and surrounded me, blocking my attempts to film, and haranguing me all the time. Later in the day as I once again arrived at the scene of some hunting activity, a terrierman threw his quad bike diagonally across the road in front of me to prevent me moving, and a rider then came along the road and shouted at me to move – which I couldn’t because of the blockage. One of the terriermen came to the side of my car and yelled “Get out of the f—ing way!” All of this to a woman alone in her car.
I have clear filmed evidence of all of the above, which I shall send to the police. This sort of behaviour happens to hunt monitors all the time, and is very harassing and frightening.
I would put money on it that all the unpleasant people mentioned above are fully paid up members of the Countryside Alliance.
I leant later that day that a female hunt monitor, a colleague, had been physically assaulted at the hunt she had been trying to monitor in another part of the country.
When I hear that the civil liberties campaigners are cosying up to these people it makes me feel sick.
If you do not know about the violence associated with hunts, you should know. In my opinion you have to have a violent streak to be part of a lynch mob which sets dogs onto defenceless animals. They readily turn their violence onto anyone who tries to stop them from pursuing their cruel activities.
I feel personally affronted by anyone involved in this conference, as I suffer from the vile behaviour of these hunters. My human rights clearly don’t matter!
The damage is done now. You credibility is shot to pieces I’m afraid. What a waste.
Guy, I would really like to hear your response to my points made here please.
This thread turned into an important and interesting discussion about animal rights. If you want that debate, why don’t you engage with it on general websites. If that debate veers back onto the topics of this Convention, make sure to tag it at delicious with “modernlibertyconvention”. The Convention’s open policy has been set out by Anthony Barnett in his post which follows mine (it refers to the beginning of this exchange). I think that the main points on both sides have been well made and the thread is now closed. Thank you everyone for your involvement. I hope that from the point of view of the Convention you will keep your sights on the big picture. See, for example, James Graham’s recent post on Quaequam:
http://www.theliberati.net/quaequamblog/2009/01/02/nine-wishes-for-2009-3-the-states-assault-on-civil-liberties-to-begin-to-reverse/
Cheers
Guy
THIS THREAD HAS NOW BEEN CLOSED.