A ban on trail hunting reveals a government more interested in cultural punishment than rural survival.
When Labour came to power, it didn’t take them long to declare war on the countryside.
Since summer 2024, they’ve introduced a grinding sequence of policies that punish rural communities. The proposed ban on trail hunting is only the latest front — but it is a deliberate one, and it tells you everything about where this government’s priorities lie.
Trail hunting is legal. Thousands of people participate in it lawfully every week throughout the autumn and winter. They do so openly, in public, often watched in great number by the communities that welcome them.
Yet Labour has decided that banning it is somehow a priority. Not fixing the economy. Not repairing crumbling rural services. Not providing support for farms at breaking point. Instead, they’re banning a lawful countryside activity. That is a failure of ambition at best, and cowardly otherism at worst.
That is a failure of ambition at best, and cowardly otherism at worst
The trail hunting ban does not exist in isolation. Look at what has already happened. Farmers were hit with a ruinous inheritance tax change that threatened family farms. Pub landlords and rural businesses are buckling under higher National Insurance contributions and unbelievable business rate increases. National Hunt racing faces challenges and shooting is under the constant threat of further restrictions. One by one, the pillars that make up rural life are being knocked down.
If you’re a farmer who allows a trail hunt on your land, enjoys a pint at the local pub and shoots from time to time, you would have fair reason to feel like a personal enemy of the Prime Minister.
Across the country, hunts support thousands of horses and thousands of hounds. They require daily care, feeding, veterinary attention and exercise, with the highest standards of animal welfare always at the forefront. These animals and their associated hunts sustain the livelihoods of grooms, kennel staff, farriers, vets and feed merchants.
If trail hunting is banned, what does the government propose should happen to those horses and 12,000 hounds? Their future is one of our primary concerns. The majority of hounds cannot be rehomed domestically, and we have made it clear to the government that they need to give serious consideration to their welfare. This is a serious concern, it is an unintended consequence of this policy and they cannot ignore it.
We will be raising this with the government again, for if they want to press ahead with these unjustified proposals then they need to have serious answers to how this will be addressed. They, after all, are the ones proposing to end the support networks that are currently in place.
The broader impact is even deeper. The vet in the market town that relies on equine work. The farrier that shoes hunters throughout the season. The B&Bs that benefit from additional revenue on meet days. These are real people and their livelihoods are at stake. I see it all too clearly in my hunt community in Worcestershire. People are worried.
It is the social fabric of rural life that we are talking about here. From mental health to the local economy, people here in the countryside feel — with good reason — victimised and ignored by a government that neither understands nor cares about how they live.
That’s why we started the Future for Hunting campaign. Under the chairmanship of Sir Ben Wallace, we are combining the resources of the British Hound Sports Association and the Countryside Alliance to fight and win, whilst opposing the proposed ban on trail hunting.
We’ve been doing, and are continuing to do, the hard yards. Data has being gathered; legal advice has been taken; a rapid-response operation is in place and rural organisations are forming a coalition. We won’t go quietly.
We know our decision makers are in Westminster, but we can apply pressure in every constituency in the country. So we are seeking meetings with MPs all parties — Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Reform and the independents — to explain the reality of what this ban would mean. We want to sit down, share the evidence and have an honest conversation about what trail hunting actually is, what it supports, and what banning it would destroy.
We are writing to MPs to request meetings. And if Labour MPs — and it is largely Labour MPs thus far — will not engage with us, then we will come to them. We will attend their constituency surgeries.
We are going to bring the farmer and their spouse, the groom and their kids, the kennel staffand their parents, and we will explain the myriad of issues with banning trail hunting.
If you live or work in the countryside, or believe that the government should not be in the business of banning lawful activities to appease urban activists, please support the Future for Hunting campaign by signing the e-lobby to oppose the consultation (before 18 June). We need your name, your voice and your willingness to stand up — it is a fight that we can win and together we can protect our hunts, hounds and the community that supports them.
