Last night MP’s voted for an outright ban on fox hunting and news of the votes was greeted with cheers by jubilant opponents of hunting who had gathered outside Parliament.
Pro-hunting demonstrators, who had been holding a round-the-clock vigil shouted angry defiance.
Yesterday, pro-hunt protesters organised by the Federation of Welsh Packs and supported by farming unions, were shouting their defiance across Britain.
Julian Salmon, Wales director of the Country Landowners and Business Association, said a ban would be unenforceable.
Mark Hinge of the Countryside Alliance said: “Hundreds of people are willing to go to prison over this issue. It would be impossible to ban hunting.”
David Thomas, of the Federation of Welsh Packs, said: “We all know why weare here today. Hunting has been carried out for the last three centuries and we intend to carry it out for the next three centuries.”
The vote was 387 to 174, but there will be a battle in the House of Lords where Tory peers are threatening to obstruct the progress of the Hunting Bill.
With a General Election expected on 3rd May the Bill needs to swiftly clear the Lords in order to achieve Royal Assent before Parliament is dissolved.
Tory leader in the Lords Lord Strathclyde said, “When the Bill reaches the House of Lords, it will be subjected to the same scrutiny as any other Government Bill. No Bill, not even the shortest and least controversial one, can normally pass the Lords in less than six to seven weeks from when it leaves the Commons,”
