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Richard Meade OBE |
THIS FUTILE GESTURE BY THE RSPCA(cutting from Sunday Telegraph 17/6/01) |
I could think of worse ways to spend a Thursday morning. But not many. I was appearing before the 25-strong Council of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, augmented by staff and lawyers.
The group was due to consider whether it should return my subscription and thereby terminate my membership. The reason? While I maintain that I have encouraged country people to join the society, support its work and play a full part in its affairs, it claims that I am the ring-leader of a damaging campaign to promote entryism into the society by those who hunt foxes.
I make no secret of the fact that I hunt, nor of the fact that I consider the soci- ety's policy towards hunting to be misjudged. But, in disagreeing with its anti- hunting stance, I am taking issue with a much wider malaise within the society — its whole relationship with animals, especially those in the countryside
. I used to sit on the RSPCA Council at a time of more balanced views. But today's council is dominated by the animal rights movement. Militant vegetarianism has overtaken reason. This is neither good for the society nor is it good for animals.
My heart sank when I realised that Lord Neill of Bladen, was to read aloud the whole of a 70-page document outlining the case against me. As he droned on I could think only of the widows' mites and the proceeds of coffee mornings and jumble sales which were being swallowed up by legal fees for this foolish and unnecessary event.
Once Lord Neill sat down, it was our turn. My barrister, Hugh Tomlinson, read the defence prepared by Sir John Mortimer. It was everything Lord Neill's introduction wasn't — engaging, persuasive and blissfully short onpoints of Law.
His case went thus: "We have just seen the mass slaughter of millions of animals for reasons which many country people question. The fields are lit by their funeral pyres. Through all this the voices of the animal rights lobby have been silent.
And yet, a controversy about one way or another of killing the killers of lambs and chickens, the necessary destruction of a comparatively small number of predators, has led to these solemn, and we say utterly misguided proceedings
. "An attack on foxhunters, if permitted, must logically lead to the expulsion of shooters and fishers. Does the silence in the face of farm slaughter indicate a hostility to animal farming in the countryside?
"Already the suspicion is growing that not only fox- hunters, but anyone who lives in the country, may not be welcomed by the society. Will the day come when membership is confined to the urban vegetarian, leading, along a hard pavement, a non-meat-eating dog for its weekly session with a canine counsellor?"
He went on:
"This inappropriate expulsion, if allowed, will prove nothing about fox hunting. It will merely show that those who speak most loudly about animal rights have often lost sight of the fact that there are human rights also." , '.
My barrister concluded Sir John Mortimer's statement by pointing out that he could see no basis in law for the proceedings, which he invited the council to termi- nate forthwith. They declined, and so we gracefully withdrew. This dignified departure was subsequently to be portrayed by the RSPCA as me "storming out".
Later that afternoon, we learned from a Guardian journalist that my membership had been terminated, a fact only later confirmed by the RSPCA's solicitors.
If it were not for the appalling waste of funds, I would The militant vegetarianism of the animal rights movement has overtaken reason have found the proceedings farcical. They were certainly pointless. I will simply be unable to attend annual meetings of the society during which so much control is exercised over the content ot the agenda and the so-called debate that they have very little value anyway.
I remain completely free to campaign for a wider membership of the society, to campaign for the expression within its policy considerations of an authentic country voice, to campaign for a recognition that this is, and should remain, an ani- mal welfare organisation rather than a political campaigning group.
I intend to do all of these things. And I intend to do them for as long as it takes to secure the future of the society. My biggest concern is for the stewardship of the society and for the millions of pounds of charitable funds that are given each year for the welfare of animals.
At a time when Britain has been facing the greatest animal welfare challenge in modern times, the RSPCA has failed to take the lead. And yet last Thursday 40 people spent a whole day and thou- sands of pounds engaged in an exercise of total futility. This is shameful. A N Wilson writes on Page 20/cutting ends
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