I presume, as this class war, you are only advocating the arrest of upper class hunters and not the significant proportion of hunters who are working class? You need to be abit more sophisticated in your arguments/definitions

Greetings Citizen.

The Good State needs your help.

We need people to enforce the laws of the land.

We need people to become community police officers.

We need people to back-up the political police out on the street and in the fields.

We need you!

I see the dilema, it's been mentioned here on IndyMedia before.

Certainly for anarchists it's a bit of a challenge.... no laws, except the ones we like... well I guess it's not much different from the rest of daily life and many protests - most people do not reject every single law and instead choose to be a little more pragmatic - until of course the glorious revolution or whatever.

Anyway, whenever I think about the hunting debate and ban I can't keep from going back to the criminal Justice Bill / Act and especially raves. Now I know it's all very different, but certainly the language that has been used is almost the same when it comes to those defending hunting and those who were defending raves and direct action etc.

In fact, I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned in the news papers or on the TV - given that now we're all into the 'how will it be enforced?' Vs' mass civil disobedience' discussion phase.

The truth is obviously that it is impossible to enforce most laws, esp when there's a set of people determined to defy them. Illegal raves still go on, week in week out, whether it's in the city, or more relevant, out in the fields, with hundreds of people, sometimes thousands - it's just that the big ones get lots of police attention and become a priority for busting - but most parties get away with it every weekend - it's only sometimes that the police bust smaller parties (last summer there was a police helicopter, three riot vans, two range rovers, two squad cars and a dog van... just for 40 people and one sound system in the middle of nowhere!)

- One of the important points about the party / rave analogy is that the police crack down on the more public / political ones that try to publicly stick two fingers up at the law... but also that the police seem to have quite big (over the top) resources to bust parties sometimes.

- It will be the same with hunting. Probably with some focus on post event prosecution of 'organisers'. Maybe they will circulate a phone number to grass up illegal hunts?

Anyway, back to the Citizen Arrests...

On the one hand it could be a very surreal and effective tactic. In practice if done on a large scale spectacular style the police will simply be put in the middle and briefed to keep the two sides apart - though of course who knows which way they'd jump :)

"I was acting to prevent a breach of law taking place" - not a bad defence!

It also raises the possibility of hunt sabs becoming some legal monitoring group for the law. "HuntWatch": Out and about with video cameras gathering evidence of people breaking the law... then submitting to the authorites - of course that depends on the level of prosecutions... but would certainly help bring things to a head in terms of legal challenges, which are on the way.

None of this sits particularly well in my head, but then we do live in strange times.

PS re class warfare (remember it was the terrier men who kicked off big time outside parliament attacking the cops and hurling barriers at them in a obviously planned way, sure the toffs got stuck in / battered as well, but we all know who the more violent hunt enforecers are...)

After 1000s of years of being ruled over by these in-breds we can legitimitely piss them off! hurrah! i'm from the cuntryside!

I'm no fox hunt fan, but if the government can invoke the Parliament Act to ban a traditional sport like hunting and undermine centuries of country life, they can ban any other pastimes and hobby they choose for dubious reasons. I'm all for the Countryside Alliance defying politicians and police scum. There should be lots more of it, because this IS a civil rights issue. Remember, Huntington Life Sciences torture and murder more critters in one day, than hunters do in lifetime. Yet, no-one is so keen to ban vivisection.

Slavery used to be "traditional". Did that make it acceptable? Of course not. It's about whether the brutal slaying of animals purely for pleasure is right or wrong, not whether it has unfortunately been common practice in the past. I'd venture to suggest that it is morally wrong.

The people on horse back I think are almost certainly (90%, or even more) NOT economically working class... [if you ask me culturally they are NOT working class, even if economically they are, but that's a big debate we'll save for another time] These are the targets, the hunting pinks, Masters of fox hounds and so on, [if you know their class composition you know they are either army, aristos, landowners, or some other toffs, it's all available in Bailys Hunting directory including their addresses]... If their lackeys want to get in the way to defend them, then they become obviously bought lackeys who change their class position by who they CHOOSE to defend... Class War, you know it makes sense;)

Slavery was not a country pursuit which picked off a few vermin, it was centuries of economic policy which entailed the genocide of a race.

Foxes may be cute and fluffy animals to you, but to farmers they are pests which kill poultry, young lambs and farmyard pets. Farmers who shoot them do not mourn their loss.

Pack dogs hunt, it is their instinct to pursue their quarry and tear it to shreds. Nature is cruel, it's not pleasant, but it's a fact of life.

If you can stop lions preying on antelope, good luck.

However, if this is an animal rights issue, Huntington Life Sciences apart, enforce a humane kill and the hunt can continue. End of...

It sounds to me like you are all simply jealous of the toffs! If the fox hunt is banned, angling, boxing, mountaineering and formula one, will follow.

Go on, set the precedent.

The bloodsports enthusiasts always trot out "vermin control for the poor farmers", as if the two were somehow related. If foxhunting were really about vermin control, then the Hunts wouldn't need to create artificial earths to make sure there are enough foxes around next season:
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/hunt/Story/0,2763,651782,00.html

Farmers shooting foxes for a quick, clean kill to protect poultry is entirely reasonable.
Fox hunting with hounds is the polar opposite of this.

Since "Nature is cruel, it's not pleasant, but it's a fact of life", should we also make bear-baiting and cockfighting legal again?
 http://www.wspa.org.uk/index.php?page=40
 http://www.hsus.org/ace/18710
After all, it's traditional, and banning these was an infringement of someone's civil right to torture live animals.
Bring it all back. Go on, set the precedent.

How about animal snuff films then, where we can all enjoy watching small pets being slowly crushed? "Nature is cruel" after all, so what's the problem?
 http://www.house.gov/judiciary/cree0930.htm

As for the facile rubbish comparing fox hunting to "lions preying on antelope", let me ask: when did a human last eat a fox? Do lions hunt for fun, and to keep the "antelope vermin" numbers down?

Gonna be at the bookfair with some Toffbusters material - see you there. If not send me an email. Cheers.

The next step.......

We don't need get too worried about the intricacies of citizens arrest at this stage.. The key element is to make the declaration that we will be attending hunts to prevent any law breaking. The police will be caught in a totally contradictory situation.They have used various laws to prevent people attending strikes - miners - demonstrations - Huntingdon etc - in the past. But we are going specifically to uphold the law - so will they try and stop our carloads of law abiders heading to the nearest hunt and not stop the hunt? The contradiction the police are placed is wonderful - and will open up all sorts of political opportunites depending on the way they act, our way of seeing things may be common sense!
Once the Countryside Alliance start trying to block access to electricity pylons etc etc the willingness to take action against them will extend far beyond the usual suspects.... it already does in fact.
This doesnt need a centralised campaign it need people to take the initiative locally, publicise their intentions and find out what the local CA and hunts are up to. We can use Indymedia to spread information. There is already a Bristol Toffbusters and anyone in the West Country can contact us at  toffbusters@yahoo.co.uk - suggest other people set up e-mail contacts by sticking town name in front of toffbusters or whatever you want to call yourselves.The more local groups there are the bigger the impact.
There will also be a leaflet available at the anarchist bookfair this weekend.
Get February 19th in them diaries now! FEb 19th, is gonna be the showpiece day when the COuntryside Alliance mobilise... but watch this space for details, or get in touch at the Anarchist bookfair on saturday 27th.

Bear-baiting does not occur in nature, and I am neither a bloodsports enthusiasts, nor an apologists for "toffs" I have never hunted in my life.

I live on a city estate but, if the hunt is outlawed, so could sports which may result in the injury of HUMANS, which is most of them, including football.

While you are focusing all your energies on saving the mangey pelt of a few foxes, thousands of human's are being exterminated like vermin in Iraq.

Just to recap:

1) I live on a city estate, and have never hunted in my life. But all you people in villages and small market towns who are against foxhunting with hounds are "Cowering City Wimps".
2) Bear-baiting does not occur in nature, but humans foxhunting on horseback with hounds does, and artificial earths are really a kind of unusual geological formation.
3) If foxhunting with hounds is outlawed, then football will be outlawed too. That's what happened when cockfighting, dog fighting and badger baiting were outlawed in this country. And football is no longer played in Scotland, since they banned foxhunting with hounds there.
4) If you're against foxhunting with hounds, you're letting humans get slaughtered in Iraq.
5) Erm.
6) That's it.

Look, let's just go over this shall we? I just want to make one thing clear - I live in the countryside, right next to the fells, two of my friends live on farms, and not one of us has seen a single fox in sixteen years. So there is no WAY that there is a surplus population of the "vermin" foxes.
Most of the population of my area are against gox hunting, but the people with the money and the power are the ones getting listened to by the media, so the minority is able to pretend to speak for the majority. Just wanted to clear this up - THE COUNTRYSIDE ALLIANCE DO NOT SPEAK FOR THE COUNTRYSIDE. They speak for the stuck up, conservative landowners who are spitting and screaming for their "right" to have the freedom to enjoy themselves ripping up defenceless animals.
All this talk of banning sports such as football and rockclimbing and other risk attached activities is crap. Hello? EVERYONE taking part in those things has CHOSEN to be there. I hardly think the foxes decide to be chased by a pack of hounds (which, by the way, are put down by the huntmaster at the age of four, so there is no WAY that by not banning the hunt you are saving their lives). The people saying these things are acting just like the countryside alliance - exaggerating things out of proportion to appeal to the paranoid masses. And we all know what sort of people the C.A are, don't we?
Full stop. Fox hunting is cruel, barbaric, and is not a tradition. To be a tradition, it has to be a recognised part of everyone's lives. It is certainly not a part of the national identity, not a part of the urban nor rural conciousness. It is simply something which the upper and upper middle classes are kicking back against banning even if they've never set eyes on a fox or indeed a horse, because they see it as another way in that their right to walk round the place like everyone in a lower social class then them was born to serve them is being infringed. They have acted like this for centuries, and it must stop. This is a class war, but I'm not sure if most of the people in this country will be bothered it is happening. And that's a shame.