The Hunting Act has become a political rallying point for the coming general election in England this spring. Pro-hunting activists are throwing their support behind the conservative party (Tories) in exchange for a free vote on the law in Parliament.

David Cameron, who will become Prime Minister should the Tories win the majority, said on national radio, “Personally, I think the hunting ban has been a farce. I don’t think it works; I think it wastes a huge amount of police time, and I think we should have a free vote in the House of Commons to see if we want to continue with it.”

Since its inception, officials have struggled to enforce the Hunting Act. Government officials and police officers have spent thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars attempting to prosecute lawbreakers; however only nine hunts have been prosecuted, with only three convictions. 

“Defending this law is now impossible, as can be seen from the growing number of anti-hunting activists and MPs [Members of Parliament] who are conceding that the law doesn’t work. It’s failed at every level, and there can be no reason for allowing such a bad law to remain on the Statute Book. Repealing the Hunting Act would be a public service and one that the next government must address as soon as it possibly can,” Countryside Alliance Chief Executive Simon Hart told Chronicle columnist Adrian Dangar.

Horse and Hound reported that a judge recently ruled that video surveillance of hunts by anti-cruelty groups violates human rights legislation. This means that prosecuing foxhunting will become much more difficult. The new manual on hunt policing by the Association of Chief Police Officers concluded that policing hunts is a waste of time and resources, and that police officers will leave evidence-gathering to anti-hunt activists. But without video footage, activists will have no concrete evidence of illegal hunting.