Former Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair was pressured into banning fox hunting after taking a £1 million donation from animal welfare activists, according to his former leading adviser Lord Mandelson.
Asked about whether donors had ever tried to buy influence, former Secretary of State Lord Mandelson noted an example that influenced the 2004 Hunting Act.
“I can offer you an example from 1997 when an organisation, it was a fund to do with the welfare of animals, got pretty transactional with us. It was the first and last time I can remember this,” he said.
‘We Went a Little Bit Too Far’
He said that Sir Tony was “reluctant” to enter into “some sort of trade over this policy.”“However, there were a lot of people in the party who wanted that ban, and a lot of MPs were coming in demanding it,” he said.
“And we got into a difficult situation where, frankly, we went a little bit too far, further than Blair wanted in making this commitment in our manifesto. And it was, frankly, under duress, but under some sort of pressure, it wasn’t attractive, and it’s not been repeated,” he said.
The Epoch Times has not been able to independently verify Lord Mandelson’s claim, though he was Sir Tony’s closest political confidant and ally.
Lord Mandelson did not name the organisation.
An IFAW spokeswoman told The Epoch Times by email that in 1997 its founder and CEO, the late Brian Davies, decided to leave IFAW to set up an alternative animal welfare organisation called the Political Animal Lobby, which is now called Network for Animals.
She said that in 1997 the Political Animal Lobby made “a donation of £1 million to the Labour Party, as well as to other political parties, and unfortunately this was reported in the press as being a donation from IFAW.”
“We would like to take this opportunity to stress that IFAW and Network for Animals are two separate organisations and therefore one does not have any influence over the actions of the other,” she said.
“As a matter of policy, IFAW does not donate to any political party,” she added.
The Epoch Times contacted the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change for comment.
“He [Lord Mandelson] is clearly saying there were a lot of people who had passionate views on the subject,” she added.
Fox Hunting
The Hunting Act of 2004 was born out of a push to outlaw traditional hunting with dog packs over accusations of animal cruelty.The law controls the hunting of wild mammals with dogs. Exemptions are complex and numerous. It allows the use of two dogs to flush out mammals for the protection of livestock, game birds, wild birds, timber, property, and biodiversity, or for meat.
There have been over 573 successful prosecutions under the legislation from 2005 to 2021.
Instead of traditional hunts that once chased foxes over hedgerows and fences, huntsman do trail hunting, a hound-based activity where a trail or scent is laid when moving across the countryside.
When it was banned many in the hunting community claimed it was never about animal welfare, rather it was a class war on countryside living, with fox hunting synonymous with aristocracy.
Reacting to the news, Tim Bonner, chief executive of the Countryside Alliance, which opposed the hunting ban, told The Epoch Times by email, “Tony Blair has already admitted that the hunting ban was one of the legislative measures he most regrets.”
He added: “The Hunting Act has failed at every level, not least in the damage it has caused to the countryside and biodiversity. A future Labour government should right the wrongs of the past and remove this running sore in Labour’s relationship with rural communities.”
