Trail Hunting Was Never a Compromise. It Was a Lie.

For twenty years, Britain has pretended that trail hunting was something other than fox hunting by another name. Not an evolution. Not a reform. A workaround.

When hunting with dogs was banned in England and Wales in 2005, the activity did not stop. It rebranded. A rag soaked in animal scent replaced the fox. The costumes stayed. The horses stayed. The hounds stayed. The “thrill” stayed. The deaths never actually went away.

Trail hunting was sold as compliance. In practice, it functioned exactly as intended: a smokescreen.

Now the government has finally said the quiet part out loud. Trail hunting is being used to continue illegal hunting. Police have said it. Campaigners have documented it. Residents have witnessed it. Even former MPs who drafted the original Hunting Act have admitted what everyone else already knew: the loophole was deliberate, and it worked.

This ban is not radical. It is overdue.

A culture built on plausible deniability

Trail hunting defenders lean heavily on intention. They insist they do not mean to chase foxes. That when hounds follow a live animal, it is an accident. That when foxes are cornered, mauled, or killed, it is unfortunate but incidental.

This argument collapses the moment you stop pretending animals are abstractions.

You do not gather packs of hounds bred to chase and kill, lay animal scent across countryside known to be occupied by foxes, block setts, deploy terrier men, intimidate monitors, and then plead innocence when the predictable happens. That is not misfortune. It is design.

The law has spent two decades trying to prove intent in an activity structured to erase it. That is why prosecutions are rare. That is why enforcement has been so difficult. And that is why the same hunts are repeatedly implicated, fined, or filmed doing exactly what they claim not to do.

Trail hunting did not fail accidentally. It succeeded perfectly at preserving the behaviour while shielding it from consequence.

Tradition is not a defence. It is the problem.

Every time a ban looms, the same arguments are rolled out.

Centuries of history. Rural identity. Community cohesion. Economic lifelines. Children on ponies. Elderly riders. Mental wellbeing. Jobs. Pubs. Farriers. Freedom. Wars fought.

What is missing from these speeches is the fox. Not as symbol. Not as vermin. As someone.

Tradition is not neutral. It describes longevity, not legitimacy. Slavery, child labour, bear-baiting, cockfighting, public executions, and forced breeding all enjoyed centuries of cultural embedding. None of that made them defensible.

The endurance of an injustice does not soften it. It hardens it.

When hunts argue that banning trail hunting threatens rural life, what they are really saying is that rural identity has been allowed to entwine itself with domination, and now feels entitled to it. That is not something the law is obligated to protect.

The economy argument and the hostage logic

Hunting organisations repeatedly warn that banning trail hunting will devastate rural economies. Hounds will have to be killed. Horses will be redundant. Trades will suffer. This is not an argument for continuation. It is an admission of dependency.

If an activity can only survive by creating living collateral and threatening their destruction when challenged, it is not a tradition. It is a hostage situation.

The same logic has been used everywhere exploitation has been confronted. End this and livelihoods will vanish. End this and communities will collapse. End this and chaos will follow.

What actually happens is simpler. People adapt. Resources shift. Identities evolve. The world does not end. Animals, however, finally stop being used as props in a ritualised performance of power.

Smokescreens, not misunderstandings

Opponents of the ban often accuse critics of ignorance. Urban values. Townies who do not understand the countryside.

This framing is revealing.

It assumes that proximity confers moral authority. That living near fields grants permission to use those who live within them. That land ownership quietly extends to life ownership.

What has actually fuelled opposition to trail hunting is not misunderstanding, but observation. Footage. Testimony. Consistency. Patterns. The same claims. The same denials. The same outcomes.

When residents describe foxes being chased across their land, domesticated animals killed in gardens, intimidation of monitors, blocked setts, and hounds “accidentally” doing exactly what they were bred to do, they are not confused. They are describing reality.

Calling this ignorance is not rebuttal. It is dismissal.

Reform language cannot fix an abolition problem

Much of the political coverage has framed the ban as part of an “animal welfare strategy.” This is where the conversation still falls short. This is not about improving standards. It is not about doing the wrong thing more carefully. It is about recognising that some practices are unjust in principle, not flawed in execution.

You cannot regulate domination into acceptability. You cannot refine exploitation until it becomes ethical. You either reject the use of animals as means to an end, or you do not.

Trail hunting has always existed in that space where lawmakers pretended a technical distinction mattered more than the outcome. The outcome was always the same.

Ending the practice is the bare minimum required to align law with reality.

What this ban actually represents

The outrage from hunting groups has been loud, but it has also been telling. They are not angry because something lawful is being misunderstood. They are angry because a shield is being removed.

They know, as everyone else does, that trail hunting was never about scent trails. It was about preserving the spectacle, the hierarchy, and the entitlement to pursue and dominate under the cover of tradition.

This ban matters not because it ends hunting with dogs outright, but because it closes the space where denial thrived. It removes the fig leaf. It says that pretending not to see what is happening will no longer be acceptable. That does not make the countryside poorer. It makes it more honest.

Enough really is enough

For twenty years, foxes have paid the price for political cowardice. For twenty years, campaigners have documented, challenged, and endured abuse for pointing out what was obvious. For twenty years, the law has bent over backwards to accommodate those who refused to comply with it. Closing the trail hunting loophole is not persecution. It is accountability.

And if some traditions cannot survive without deception, intimidation, and the routine sacrifice of animals who never consented to be part of them, then those traditions do not deserve to survive at all.

Not everything old is worth keeping. Some things are worth ending.