The new proposals from Labour doubling down on the decade-old law passed by Tony Blair’s government could mean that trail hunts that took place today were the UK’s last
Illegal UK fox hunting is being policed by a multi-volunteer coalition of unlikely figures, including doctors, teachers and farmers, who are mounting grassroots campaigns to assist police.
A new animal welfare strategy published by the Government on Monday outlined Labour plans to end the practice, which sees dogs follow a pre-laid scent trail instead of tracking real animals, making those that took place on Boxing Day 2025 potentially the last ever. The plans would effectively close what critics claim is a loophole or “smokescreen”, as Labour termed it in its manifesto, hunters are using to follow and kill foxes using packs of dogs – a practice that has been banned for 30 years.
Those critics have been doggedly pursuing fox hunters they suspect may be using this exploit, forming unlikely groups and using specialist tactics that are assisting police.
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Amy Stevens, a Research Associate at the University of Sheffield’s School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations, Keith Spiller, an Associate Professor of Criminology at Southampton University and and Xavier L’Hoiry, a Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Social Policy at the University of Sheffield, have uncovered a group of saboteurs including doctors, teachers and even farmers.
The trio, who are exploring citizen-led policing in the UK, are looking at changing tactics in hunt sabotage, a long-running practice that seeks to stop fox hunters in their tracks.
Writing in a piece for The Conversation, the academics spoke to members of a sabotage group who said they “drag each other out of the mud … and keep each other’s back”. While the groups are long seen as simple clusters of activists, they are highly organised and sink hours into preventing fox hunts and gathering evidence of groups breaking the law to do so, which they pass to police.
One of the “typical” saboteurs they spoke to, an anonymous woman referred to as “Lizzie”, was described as a “middle-class professional working full-time in a demanding job”.
She said the issue has ceased to be a class clash, and switched to an effort to uphold the now 30-year-old law outlawing foxhunting in the UK. She explained that all of her group are “just looking for the law to be upheld”, and they are all holding “responsible jobs while doing so”.
She said: “For a long time, hunt sabs were just seen as hippies that don’t work; just these nutty animal rights extremists. [But] there’s nurses, there’s social workers, there’s an electrician – we’re all working, we’re all in responsible jobs … I think the police are coming around to thinking this isn’t a class issue. [We] are just looking for the law to be upheld.”
The working professionals whose efforts underpin the sabotage movement employee techniques that derail hunts without harming animals or coming into direct conflict with hunters.
These may include laying substances with strong smells like citronella or aniseed to throw animals off the scent, by creating false trails, or in some cases obstructing hunters physically. They also record the activities of hunting groups saying they participate in trail hunting using video cameras and, more recently, drones, to police them.
