Born Free at the party conferences
The Labour party pledged to protect UK nature and stop wild animal suffering. So now, with your support, our charity calls on parliamentarians to do right by wildlife.
Born Free’s Dominic Dyer (third from left) and Dr Mark Jones (fourth from left) at the Labour Party event
With the new UK government in office for less than three months, and with 300 new MPs in Parliament, this autumn’s Party Conferences provided a great opportunity to press for wildlife protection and animal welfare improvements.
To achieve this, Born Free joined colleagues from like-minded organisations to coordinate events at both the Liberal Democrat conference in Brighton, and the Labour conference in Liverpool.
At both conferences, Born Free’s UK Wildlife Advocate Dominic Dyer chaired panel discussions under the title ‘Why the Wildlife Protection and Animal Welfare Vote mattered’. Born Free’s Head of Policy Dr Mark Jones sat on both panels, alongside colleagues from the League Against Cruel Sports, Humane Society International/UK, and Four Paws UK. Both events were well attended by conference delegates. In Brighton, the Liberal Democrat Environment spokesman Tim Farron MP joined the panel. In Liverpool we were joined by back bench Labour MP and longstanding animal advocate Ruth Jones.
During the election campaign, we were encouraged by the commitments made by the Labour party to protect landscapes and wildlife, promote nature recovery, meet the targets in the Environment Act, and improve access to nature. Labour MP Steve Reed, who is now the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, was also quoted as saying: “For too long, too many animals, including the world’s most endangered species, have been left to suffer in silence. The Conservatives are on the side of animal cruelty. Labour will end it. The next Labour government will introduce the biggest boost to animal welfare in a generation to end animal cruelty…”
However, there was little in the King’s Speech to indicate that these promises will be prioritised and fulfilled by the new Labour administration during its first parliamentary session in office.
Speaking after the conferences, Dr Mark Jones said: “We used this opportunity to urge delegates to ensure the new government not only fulfils its stated commitments to ban trophy imports, snares and trail hunting, but also puts in place the legislation and policies needed to effectively protect and restore our precious wildlife and to end animal suffering. We were pleased to join colleagues from our partner organisations and to have the opportunity to engage directly with so many parliamentarians and party members.”
Many of the issues Born Free was advocating for at both conferences were articulated in an open letter from Born Free Co-Founders Dame Virginia McKenna and Will Travers OBE to the Prime Minister, which was signed by a number of prominent wildlife advocates and organisations alongside more than 8,000 of Born Free’s supporters, and published in advance of the Labour conference. In particular, Born Free emphasised the crisis facing the natural world, the fact that the UK is recognised as one of the world’s most nature-depleted countries with one in eight of our native species at risk of extinction, and that vast numbers of wild animals continue to suffer here in the UK through persecution, cruel and destructive management practices, and in wholly inadequate and poorly-regulated captive environments.
Dr Jones concluded: “If we are to live up to our reputation as a nation of animal lovers, there is an urgent need for comprehensive and effective protection for our precious wildlife. Our supporters wrote to their parliamentary candidates in droves during the election, demanding a better deal for wild animals. The new government has the power and the mandate to make a real difference and set a precedent for other countries to follow.”
At the Labour conference in Liverpool, Dominic Dyer also chaired an event coordinated by Higginson Strategy to highlight the brutal slaughter of dolphins and pilot whales in the Faroe Islands, and the opportunity for the UK government to use its trade agreement with the Islands as leverage to bring the slaughter to an end. Dr Mark Jones joined Alex Mayer MP and journalist Steph Spyro from the Daily Express on the panel, and provided some veterinary insights into the horrific suffering inflicted on these animals. Born Free also joined activists in a demonstration outside the conference centre to emphasise the brutal nature of the slaughter.
Dominic Dyer said: “The Government must now make it clear that they will suspend the hugely valuable Free Trade Agreement with the Faroe Islands, which resulted in over £1.2 billion of fish imports to Britain in 2023, unless the Faroe Islands Government make a legally binding commitment to end the mass killing of whales & dolphins.”
The need for reform, and for real, effective protection for both free-living and captive wild animals, has never been more urgent. With your support, Born Free will continue engage with parliamentarians from all political parties to hold government to account, and ensure it does the right thing for wild animals and creates a legacy of which we can all be proud.