Fox hunting — riders in red coats following a pack of hounds across country after a fox — was banned in England and Wales by the Hunting Act 2004, and in Scotland two years earlier. The argument about it occupied British politics for the better part of a decade and has not entirely stopped.
What it involved
A hunt consists of a pack of foxhounds, a huntsman who controls them, and a field of mounted followers. The hounds pick up a fox’s scent and pursue it; if they catch it, they kill it. Hunts are organised into local packs with long histories, and meets traditionally begin at a pub or a country house.
The red coats, incidentally, are called “pinks” — for reasons that are disputed and probably have nothing to do with a tailor called Pink.
The political battle
The Hunting Act consumed an extraordinary amount of parliamentary attention. More than 700 hours of Commons and Lords time went on it, considerably more than on the invasion of Iraq, and it took seven years from the first serious attempt to the Act reaching the statute book.
The House of Lords repeatedly rejected a ban, and it was eventually forced through using the Parliament Act — the mechanism allowing the Commons to override the Lords, used only a handful of times since 1949.
The Countryside Alliance organised the Liberty and Livelihood March in 2002, which brought around 400,000 people to London — one of the largest demonstrations in British history — and framed the issue as urban politicians legislating against a rural way of life they did not understand.
Why it was so bitter
Because it was never only about foxes. The dispute mapped onto some of the deepest fault lines in British life: urban against rural, and — unmistakably — class. Hunting was widely perceived as an aristocratic pursuit, and for a section of the Labour Party banning it carried a symbolic charge well beyond animal welfare.
Supporters argued that hunting was a legitimate form of pest control, that it sustained rural employment and horsemanship, and that the ban was class prejudice dressed as compassion. Opponents argued that chasing an animal to exhaustion and having it torn apart by dogs could not be defended as sport whoever was doing it.
Trail hunting
The Act did not end hunts. Most continue as trail hunting, following an artificial scent laid in advance, which is legal.
This is where the argument now sits. Anti-hunt campaigners maintain that trail hunting is frequently used as cover for illegal hunting, and monitors film meets to gather evidence. Prosecutions have followed, and in 2021 a senior hunt official was convicted of encouraging illegal hunting in webinars — after which the National Trust, Forestry England and several other major landowners banned trail hunting on their land.
Boxing Day
Hunts still gather on Boxing Day morning in town squares across England, in full dress, watched by supporters and protesters in roughly equal numbers. It remains one of the more charged sights in the British calendar.
Repeal has been promised by some politicians and never attempted seriously. Polling consistently shows large majorities against bringing hunting back, including in rural areas.