‘Blue foxes’ spark Tory spat over hunt ban
A fox-hunting row has broken out between Conservative backbenchers over the support of several new female MPs for maintaining Labour’s hunt ban.
Blue Fox is the name on the back of the contact card of the Conservatives Against Fox Hunting's founders
link
By James Kirkup, Political Correspondent
1:44PM BST 14 Aug 2011
Fox Hunting’Killed off’ by the Tories?
Written by Joshua Kaille of The league Against Cruel Sports on 15 August, 2011 : 13:17
Yesterday’s Daily Mail ran a piece entitled ‘Fox hunting vote “killed off” by new generation of young urban Tory women opposed to bloodsports’ which went a good way to demonstrating the growing voice the ‘Blue Fox’ group has within Parliament.
For a long time it has been seen by many that the Conservative Party have supported hunting but this simplistic view is rapidly changing. If you asked people only a couple of years ago about Conservative MPs opposing bloodsports you would probably have heard names such as Ann Widdecombe, Roger Gale or David Amess, but now the list is much more exhaustive.
Opposing hunting and other bloodsports no longer requires maverick politicians who are unafraid of their party and the repercussions of their actions; there is a vocal group within Parliament that has been demonstrating that you can be a Conservative Party member, indeed a politician, and oppose cruelty to animals in the name of sport.
This apparent transformation has not happened overnight; it has been coming for some time but it owes a great deal to the grass roots group Conservatives Against Fox Hunting aka ‘Blue Fox’. Blue Fox have been working tirelessly to provide Conservative MPs with the confidence from which to stand up and represent not only the vast majority of the public who oppose repealing the Hunting Act, but what is also forgotten, that the vast majority of Conservative voters and supporters also oppose repeal.
The tag line “Don’t run with the pack” is used to great effect by Blue Fox in highlighting that perhaps it appears all too easy for Conservative MPs to assume their party supports hunting and therefore they should continue this path. Fortunately the new influx of Conservative MPs has taken this onboard and has listened to what the public and their own constituents think on this issue and not historical records. There are indeed a group of over twenty Conservative MPs (and rising) who have declared their support for the Hunting Act, but what perhaps is not so well documented is that another group of MPs who previously supported hunting are now wavering. This is due to an increasing number of convictions under the Hunting Act, a clear public message not to mention every single argument for repeal falling down under scrutiny (James’ blog last week demonstrated this perfectly)
If you are not sure what your MP thinks about the Hunting Act, then just email them here to find out; but do not be surprised if your Conservative MP agrees with you that the Hunting Act is here to stay!
