Rally Speech made by Ann Mallalieu
I was not born on Exmoor but I wish I had been. The magic of Exmoor defies analysis. It is not just the sheer beauty of wild places and the wild things that live here; it is not just the knowledge and passion of its people for the ways of nature and one of Britain's remaining wilderness. It is the people. Exmoor is a true living community of 'proper people'.
The economy here depends on three things - all under threat. All of those here today do not need me to tell them that small family farms are clinging by their fingernails to solvency in the worst farming crisis since the 1930's. Tourism helps some, but for seven months of the year from October to April, tourism means people who come here to shoot and to hunt. And then there is hunting. Those who want to ban hunting used to say that very few jobs would be lost. The Council survey here shows that to be totally untrue, £5.5 million would be lost to this struggling rural economy each year. 400 full-time jobs and 800 part-time ones would go. Those are the statistics. These are the facts.
According to the survey not one single person in Exford was registered unemployed. The Devon & Somerset Staghounds are the largest employer in the parish. The effect on this community in short would be devastating. Many of you who have come from far away to support Endangered Exmoor today know that what would be true here would be true elsewhere. Many of our most fragile economies would be devastated if hunting stopped. More than that, hunting is the culture of this community enjoyed by people from every walk of life, many of them with very little money. It is the recreation. It is the meeting place. It is the social life. It is the source of help in times of trouble.
I recently heard an MP say about the hunting debate: "This is not about foxes. It is about who rules Britain. Us or the Tory toffs".
But here we know how wrong he is. It is about the jobs and lives of Jeanette and the girls in the stables; John Kent and Dinky Dayment, the farriers; Donald, John, Tony Wright and all the others at the many kennels. They and hundreds like them are the people who would be hurt. This is an attack on them, their jobs, their homes, their pleasure, their way of life. So often, those who come here sceptical or even hostile to hunting go away convinced when they understand what it means here for both people and animals. Surely our nation is richer because it has within it different ways of life and different traditions. Surely the mark of a free society is its willingness to tolerate the rights of its minority cultures. We do not want to live in a society where different ways which serve the community well but which the majority neither share nor understand, are crushed and destroyed by the law.
Why are we meeting now? Last week two members of Parliament with close links to the International Fund for Animal Welfare went to see the Home Secretary demanding a promise from the Government for action to ban hunting by the end of July. IFAW is not a charity. It is an overseas based profit making business. Its founder recently received a £1 million payoff. It collects money from the public which it spends on advertising, lobbying, fund raising and its own employees. Now it is threatening to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on advertising, attacking the Government if no promise is forthcoming within the next month. Last week every member of the House of Commons and the House of Lords received a glossy brochure entitled, 'Deadline 2000', funded again by IFAW, demanding a ban by the end of next year. If their demands are met, the lives of these two MP's would not change in any respect. They would still have their jobs and salaries which are many times the wages of those whose jobs would go here. They claim to speak for animal welfare. The reality here on Exmoor is this.
If a pony or a deer or a cow or a horse is badly injured, no one sends for Mr Sirl of the League Against Cruel Sports. Nor do they send for Mr Hill of IFAW with his state of the art video equipment. They send for Donald from the kennels with his humane killer knowing that 24 hours a day in all weathers he will come out and end the suffering, even when the caller is the National Trust. No hunting means no casualty service. Did these MP's either know or care?
From what I know of the Prime Minister I do not believe that he will give in to pressure or bullying. He has already spent much time defending the rights of minorities in Kosovo and Northern Ireland. I do not believe he will choose to mark the Millennium by declaring war on an English countryside already under seige.
Rich and powerful lobbying organisations may make the loudest noise. What they cannot do is produce real people. We love our way of life here and we want to keep it and share it too. We are a minority. Our culture is different from that of the towns, cities and suburbs. Some may disapprove of us and we understand that unless you live in a community like ours it may be difficult to understand our love of both wildlife and of hunting and why the one is essential for the survival of the other. But tolerance is meaningless unless it applies to things of which you disapprove.
Prime Minister
You said that you would govern on behalf of the whole nation. This rural community needs your help with things that matter, jobs, transport, health, affordable housing, Exford School desperately needs a new classroom for which there is no money. We hope that you will continue to devote the time and energy of your government on the things which matter and need to be done.
Those who have organised this campaign with few exceptions have never campaigned before. They do so now because they feel threatened. This is not a rich community. Those who would seek to destroy its way of life are well funded. They will produce polls and propaganda. They do not come from here. This campaign cannot match theirs for expenditure. But unlike theirs it can produce real people, with jobs and tied houses and children and a real community in which extremism and tolerance have no place.
The message from this West Country village green is the same message that another parliamentarian, Thomas Rainborowe, delivered to Parliament in 1647. The words he used are ones with which we hope you agree:
"The poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he."
This is our way of life. We will defend it. If you care for freedom so will you.
Ann Mallalieu, Labour Peer and President of the Countryside Alliance, lives near Exford and hunts here on Exmoor.