(30/03/2000) Labour accused of ‘intolerance’ and ‘unfairness’ by new British economic ‘think tank’ report

The Fur Farming (Prohibition) Bill [1] currently before Parliament is described as "morally and scientifically unjustified" in a new report [2] published by the Institute of Economic Affairs.

"Parliament should think twice before sponsoring such intolerance", it says.

The IEA report ‘Fur and Freedom - in defence of the fur trade’ [3] by writer and broadcaster, Richard D. North [4] argues that in a society such as Britain’s, Parliament should "encourage toleration" so long as people are not harmed and, North points out, "farming and wearing fur harms nobody"!

The Fur Farming (Prohibition) Bill opens up a new dimension to UK legislation - ‘public morality’, or an ethical policy. North says: "This language is new, and seems necessary mostly because there are few serious justifications for picking out fur farming as particularly bad except perhaps, that large numbers of people profess themselves opposed to it. In other words, public ‘morality’ is now synonymous with public ‘opinion’."

A foreword to the report by Prof. Roger Scruton, a former lecturer at Birkbeck College, London and Boston University, Massachusetts, points to the pre-election £1million donation to Labour from the animal rights group [5] lobbying for a fur farm ban.

Prof Scruton says: "The decision that a trade should be criminalised, without any proof of its immorality or any suggestion that it is socially divisive or environmentally destructive, and only because a pressure group has said so, is a novel departure in English government."

The British Fur Trade Association says the report is timely. Tolerance, fairness and decency are reportedly the new watchwords for Tony Blair [6] seeking to identify with Britain’s inherent sense of fairness. But the BFTA asks, "Where is the fairness in banning fur farming on the basis on some vague notion of public morality? And where is the decency in accepting cash to promote such legislation?

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Issued by the British Fur Trade Association.
Press contact: Andrea Martin
e-mail press@britishfur.co.uk

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Notes to editors:

A date for the 2nd Reading of the Fur Farming (Prohibition) Bill has yet to be determined.

The IEA report can be accessed in full now on the Internet at http://www.iea.org.uk/wpapers/fur.htm

The report is based on research funded by the British Fur Trade Association and published independently by the Institute of Economic Affairs (March 2000, £8).

About the author: From 1990 to 1992, Richard D. North (at www.richarddnorth.com) was Environment Columnist for the Sunday Times. Prior to that, from 1986 to 1990, he was Environment Correspondent for the Independent. He is the author of Life on a Modern Planet: A Manifesto for Progress (Manchester University Press, 1995 and St Martin's Press, New York, 1995); Fools For God (Collins, 1987); Schools for Tomorrow (Green Books, 1987) Working the Land (with Charlie Pye-Smith, 1985); The Real Cost (Chatto and Windus, 1984); Wild Britain (Century, 1983); and The Animals Report (Penguin, 1982). Recent pamphlets by Richard North include: Hereditary Peers: The case as yet unheard (Social Affairs Unit, 1999); and The Hunt At Bay (Wildlife Network, 1999). Richard D. North can be contacted on his pager 04325 628728 or email rdn@richarddnorth.com
The Political Animal Lobby — a sister organisation to the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) donated more than £1million to the Labour Party in 1996.
Reported in the Guardian, 28 March 2000: "Tony Blair will today try to kick start a debate on the nature of modern Britishness when he leads off a series of speeches by a group of his cabinet colleagues - Gordon Brown, Jack Straw and David Blunkett. A Blair aide explains the thinking. " …If we can get this right we can associate Labour with the values and institutions the British people hold most dear and regard as emblematic of Britishness — decency, tolerance, liberty, fair play."