For ‘fox sake’ Mr Cameron

Today (Tuesday July 14) the Tories cynically postponed the fox hunting ban amendment which was scheduled to be voted on in the House of Commons tomorrow.

The move reeks of suspicion and underhand tactics after the SNP stated that they would join forces with Labour in a bid to keep the ban in England and Wales.

The vote has now been shelved until the Tories can guarantee a win by shutting out those who don’t agree with them.

Fox hunting is now off the table so that Cameron can push his English votes for English laws (EVEL) and get rid of a proportion of the lobby against.

“The government clearly believed it would lose this vote, but ministers will now be set upon manipulating parliamentary procedure – including through their ill-thought through proposals on EVEL – to find a way of bringing it back,” said Baroness Smith of Basildon, Labour’s Leader in the House of Lords.

Abolishing fox hunting is an issue that has huge backing from animal welfare charities and campaigns like PETA and the RSPCA and celebrities like Ricky Gervais, who has a massive social media following.

“Fox Hunting is nothing more than a cruel and barbaric blood sport which has no place in a civilised society,” said Grahame Morris MP.

News of the vote being postponed broke as hundreds of animal rights campaigners descended on Westminster to urge MPs to vote against the plan.

“David Cameron is now running scared because he knew he was going to lose the vote on fox hunting,” said Maria Eagle MP, shadow secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs.

“The government’s proposed changes to the Hunting Act have become a shambles. This has nothing to do with ‘pest control’ – it is a shabby attempt to repeal a successful piece of animal welfare legislation by the back-door,” Maria added.

Unite’s national officer for rural and agricultural workers, Julia Long agreed.

She said, “Repealing the fox hunting ban would be a massively retrograde step for our supposed civilised animal-loving country. The move to delay the vote until the government thinks it can win is nothing short of shameless.

“If they can do this against foxes what will they do to ensure that they get their way against workers?”

It is thought that the Tories will try and reintroduce the vote in the autumn once rules have been introduced to stop Scottish MPs voting on England-only matters.

As the vote is only postponed now is the time to lobby your own MP to keep the ban permanently. You can contact your MP by finding their email address/ office phone number here.

Sign a petition

This Change.org one urging David Cameron not to change the ban has nearly 500,000 signatures, or this 38 degrees petition has nearly 100,000.

This one, asking the government not to make any changes to the ban has over 53,000 signatures.

There’s also a Facebook group here which you could join, which has 13,000 likes currently.

Sign them all to have as much impact as possible.