As parliament votes in favour of a bill banning fox hunting which is unlikely to become law for years due to the machinations of the Labour government, and Huntingdon Life Sciences looks likely to close due to targeting by animal rights protesters I feel moved to examine why animal-related issues are taken so seriously the 'United Kingdom' and why so much of the time and energy of political activists is spent on these causes.

I am not an apologist for fox hunting, I will not weep to see it banned, but nor will I celebrate the further curtailing of freedom by this iniquitous Labour government, even if it is the freedom to do something of which I do not approve. I am not interested in debating the rights and wrongs of hunting with hounds, but why seemingly intelligent people (that's hunt saboteurs and protestors, not MPs who voted to ban hunting) have decided that while there are many things in the world that they object to, the worst of all, and the one to which they will devote their time and energy to opposing, is fox hunting. Why is opposition to hunting with hounds so widespread? Why fox hunting, rather than angling? I don't believe that people who quote (and perhaps fund?) research that suggests that deer feel 'stress' would argue that fish do not feel pain. There is something to be said for choosing your battles, and it does look as though there is a chance that fox hunting may actually be banned sometime soon, whereas it will be a wet, cold day in hell before the British government bans recreational fishing. And there is the fluff factor, foxes look cuddly and furry and cute, fish don't, but I think there is something else going on when it comes to fox hunting. If you point out to an opponent of fox hunting that angling, eating meat, drinking milk and wearing leather also involve unnecessary cruelty to animals but far fewer people protest about it, or question them about whether fox hunting really is the worst thing that goes on in this country, even in terms of cruelty to animals, they will reveal an additional motivation. "Yes, but I hate I those people." There the conversation ends, because who would not be embarrassed to defend a bunch of 'toffs' poncing around in red coats and talking posh? In some ways this is the trump card of the anti-hunting lobby, their opponents are so unlikeable (or unspeakable as Wilde put it). So what, you might say, at least they are attacking the ruling class, even if they do so for the wrong reasons. The problem is that the fox hunting classes are not really the ruling class any more. Although the Countryside Alliance tries to make hunting sound inclusive by pointing out it employs many non-toffs (the same ones they employ to go on their marches), this is about as convincing as saying the hunt ball is inclusive as the waiters don't have double barrel names. Hunting is inextricably associated with the aristocracy, and aristocrats are the remains of the last ruling class, who, vile and inbred as they may be, are now so lacking in real power that they are finding it impossible to retain their control of the house of Lords, and if hereditary lords have lost that then they have lost everything but their titles and their money. Tony Blair and Jack Straw do not hunt foxes. Prince Charles does, but it isn't Prince Charles who wants to ban teenagers from walking down the street after 10 p.m. and introduce ?100 fines for being drunk without having a home to do it in the privacy of. Yes, he probably would if he could (although his views on immigration, for example, are way to the left of the Labour party), but the point is that he doesn't have the power to. Of course, the old ruling class still have some power, as they are still rich and wealth automatically brings power. The answer to this is then why hide your attack on their privilege behind a dubious animal rights agenda? Why not attack the fact that people own land, rather than the fact that a little fox might be killed on that land? It would not go down as well with the Labour party, but surely that is a sign that you are on the right track. If sixteenth century peasants had tried to stop the lord of the manor from killing foxes (an unlikely thing to cross their mind, I know) that would have been revolutionary. And they would probably have been executed (they probably were anyway), they certainly wouldn't have had support from people with power to ban things, because at the time Britain was ruled by aristocrats.

By presuming that protestors against hunting have these hidden motives I am giving them the benefit of the doubt, perhaps they are just stupid, like the sixty year old woman who was protesting about the live export of calves a few years ago, and said that she had never protested about anything before in her life, but in this case she just had to. So, the anti-nuclear movement, the miner's strike, the poll tax protests, these things had just passed her by, but when someone suggested putting a little calf in a crate, well, she just had to do something. People like that are beneath contempt.

Banning fox hunting will have the unfortunate side effect of eradicating another traditional rural sport, hunt sabotaging. Hunt sabbing I can understand the appeal of, being out in the countryside with your friends trying to outwit a hated enemy, (maybe even an old enemy from your Eton days!). However, very few hunt saboteurs are honest enough about their motives to admit that they enjoy it and would miss it if fox hunting were banned. In spite of reservations about whether sabotaging fox hunts is the best possible use of direct action, hunt saboteurs are to be admired as at least they are taking action themselves rather than pleading for the government to ban things. Those who want the government to step in and stop the hunters for them are not only providing an abject spectacle but setting a dangerous precedent. They are publicly acknowledging the state's authority and legitimacy, thereby cutting off the possibility of more radical action against state power. The kind of prohibitions approved by those who plead for the banning of what they find abhorrent (pornography, hunting, the BNP) are used by the state to criminalise and attack 'protest' itself. Notably right now the 'animal rights' action at Huntingdon Life Sciences is being used as an excuse to criminalise almost all political expression beyond writing to your MP: for example, shouting 'scab' while picketing could become a criminal offence.

Another tenet of the animal rights movement to have crossed over to the mainstream is the anti-fur campaign. Very few people wear fur in London, and those who do risk being abused or attacked. This is because all fur, be it rabbit or squirrel fur, or farmed mink, is equated with the cruel capture of an endangered animal in a gin trap, or a burly Canadian bashing a harp seal cub on the head. I even know someone who was beaten up for wearing a FAKE leopard-skin coat, by people who failed to stop and reflect about how much a real leopard-skin coat would cost. Leopard-skin is the preserve of the corrupt rulers of third world countries, and you are unlikely to meet them on your way home from the pub (I did meet a man who claimed to be the former prime minister of Papua New Guinea in such circumstances, but that's another story). There are indeed arguments why it is less reprehensible to wear leather and eat meat than to wear fur, but these arguments are not strong enough to justify ostracising anyone who wears fur, or throwing paint or acid at them, while not even commenting on the wearing of leather. Again, the strong feelings about fur are perversions of an underlying class struggle. Fur is seen as a luxury product and is associated with another outdated class enemy, the forties industrialist with his cigar, with his fat wife in her mink coat in their Rolls Royce. While animal rights protesters attack this outdated image of evil and privilege, the more modern ruling class are beyond reproach in their artificial fibres made by children in sweatshops. Almost all the clothes you wear, and everything bought and sold, involve cruelty or unfairness to someone or something. It's called capitalism, and you cannot destroy it or disassociate yourself from it by using your 'consumer power' and buying 'cruelty free' products (practically an oxymoron). This is not an argument to just give up and do nothing, but to think harder about who and what to attack.

The methods, as well as the motives, of anti-fur protestors are questionable. In what must be one of the most differently abled of their actions they released large numbers of mink into the countryside. In view of the devastating results that introduced species can have on native animals and their habitats (as for example they have in New Zealand), anyone who hunted these mink and made them into fur coats would be doing 'nature' and animals a service. They may be damn fluffy, but mink are likely to tear other equally fluffy animals limb from limb.

The fondness of animal rights activists have for displaying gory pictures is also a dubious technique, and one that they share with anti-abortion campaigners. You could collect equally disturbing pictures of injuries and pain suffered by humans around the world every day (in fact there are websites that do this for you), but removed from their context they mean very little, and do not offer the viewer any solution to the problem. Every time I take money out of the bank I get to see a picture of a mutilated dog. What am I supposed to do, change to using a nice bank? All banks invest money in companies that cause suffering in some way. You might as well put a sign outside the bank saying 'Warning - usury!'. All the gory pictures do is elicit an emotional response from people and get them to sign petitions so they feel as if they have done something and are able to exorcise the image from their mind. You could of course show them pictures of animals suffering on farms or in the slaughterhouse. If you don't eat meat, or dairy products, or wear leather or wool and believe that it is always wrong for a human to kill an animal or cause it suffering for any reason, and you care more about this than about the suffering of other human beings, then there is no contradiction here, but most people who sign the petitions would think such an idea was insane, and there is something wrong with a movement supported by many people who do not agree with its aims. Some animal rights supporters claim that this will change, that one day eating meat will be unacceptable, and cite the fact that slavery was once considered acceptable. This argument ignores the fact that slavery was never acceptable to the slaves. Slaves were bought and sold in markets, made to work without pay, and kept and bred as if they were animals, when in fact they were not animals and were aware of that fact, and when they could, they fought against their oppressors, or escaped. Similarly, it is often said that Jewish people in death camps were systematically killed like cattle, the point being that they were not cattle. . Animals feel pain, and to inflict pain on them or keep them in inappropriate conditions is cruelty, but animals do not suffer from anticipating their fate, do not protest against injustice, and do not suffer if they are separated from their families and friends (apart from young animals seperated from their mothers) and are not capable of organising a resistance movement. To equate the treatment of animals with slavery comes close to equating non-white, non-Christian people with animals again.

As for the Huntingdon Life Sciences campaign, it is a huge wasted opportunity that a campaign against the pharmaceutical industry should concentrate on their use of animals in experiments. There are many far more valid and pressing reasons to attack the pharmaceutical industry, for example its use of 'intellectual property' laws to prevent the sale of generic (i.e. affordable) AIDS drugs in Africa and its increasing control of the medical system.

Fewer animals would suffer in experiments if scientific research were motivated by a desire to improve the lives of humans (and indeed animals) rather than to make further profits for the pharmaceutical companies' investors. Localised attacks on animal experimentation rather than the system which encourages it is not going to change things, pharmaceutical companies will just test their drugs on animals in other countries. Attacking multinationals, causing them trouble and costing them money is a worthwhile thing to do, and the tactics used by the campaign against Huntingdon have obviously worked, and should be used against other companies, but if their bottom line is for fewer animals to suffer, then not only are they misguided in their aims, but they have not succeeded in their own terms. The best outcome would be if the activists involved (or anyone else) takes these techniques and uses them in a less short-sighted campaign.

A few times a year someone is killed in police custody. Each time this happens there are protests, but very few people turn up at these protests compared to how many might be there if the Brixton police killed a little fox (don't laugh, there was more of an outcry when it was suggested that British police were unkind to their dogs).

The protests about the Gulf War, the sanctions against Iraq, and the continued bombing of Iraq in operations which include the Turkish army, which takes the opportunity to bomb the Kurdish villages which were previously attacked by the Saddam Hussein, also fail to attract crowds. And of course Britain is still occupying the six counties, in a conflict that most people see as too 'complex' for them to deal with.

Animal rights protestors and hunt saboteurs are predominantly white and middle class. I am sure that people will dispute this, just as the Countryside Alliance disputes the claim that fox hunters are upper class. If they involved themselves with any movements that involved issues of race or class they might find they might have to take a back seat and listen to other people's ideas. They might find that they people whose rights they were defending wished to organise their own movements, that these people had widely differing views, their motives might be questioned and they might be accused of being middle class wankers and told to fuck off. They would have to think hard about their opinions and be able to defend them. Animals are never going to turn around and say "You've got it all wrong, this is not what we want!"

A lot of people, some of whose opinions I respect, would probably disagree with this article, and will keep right on defending those poor animals and their rights, but before doing that, just ask yourselves, do you want to look back on the years when more of our freedoms were being removed (the right to protest, the right to strike, trial by jury, the right to silence), more public space and property was becoming privately owned, and remember that you did nothing because you were too busy stopping people from killing a few foxes?