Adverts: 0161 709 4576 - Editorial: 0161 709 4571
Mail Order: 0161 709 4578 - Subs: 0161 709 4575 - Webteam: 0161 709 4567
Scotland’s new hunting bill
‘a shambles’ say pro-hunters


The Countryside Alliance last week condemned as ‘a shambles’ the attempt by the Scottish Parliament to criminalise hunting in Scotland. The Chairman of the Countryside Alliance Campaign for Hunting, Sam Butler, said “This result merely confirms what we already knew - that the bill is a disreputable shambles”.

He continued, “It is not clear what the bill does. But what is clear is that the bill is a vindictive and shoddy piece of legislation which needlessly declares war on decent, hard-working people and seeks to put many of them out of work without a penny of compensation”.

Protest

Mr. Butler said, “This attempted infringement of human freedoms will be challenged in the Scottish courts as incompatible with the European Convention of Human Rights now enshrined in Scottish law”. He called on all in the UK who care about civil liberty and tolerance to raise their voices in protest to help safeguard the freedoms of the Scottish people.

Alliance Chief Executive Richard Burge, echoing Mr. Butler’s criticisms this evening, said the bill proved the folly of trying to create legislation based on personal moral value judgments. “This bill’s sponsors long ago abandoned any pretence that it was about animal welfare”, he said. “The bill is now revealed as a blatant attempt to seek to interfere with human thought and behaviour. Competent politicians should know better than to try to frame legislation that merely seeks to impose their own personal opinion on the community - and especially on cultural minorities. That is why this bill was destined from the first to be an unworkable mess - and the lesson should not be lost on politicians beyond Scotland”.