ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the specific circumstances leading up to the hunting ban that came into force in England and Wales in February 2005. It will describe events from 1989, when the Campaign to Protect Hunted Animals (CPHA) was set up by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), the RSPCA and the LACS, and then trace the way in which the debate developed. It will show how the influence and role of pressure groups like the RSPCA and the IFAW increased in line with public opinion and at the expense of the defenders of hunting. And it will explain that the merger of the BFSS with other countryside pressure groups to form the Countryside Alliance (CA) in 1997 was a sign of weakness rather than strength. By the turn of the century, a significant change in the balance of forces in Parliament, especially in the House of Commons, had transformed the anti-hunting lobby’s chances of getting a hunting ban enacted. The relationship between the Labour government and its backbenchers proved to be decisive in ensuring the passage of the Hunting Bill.
