Move to ease fox hunting ban stirs UK political storm
Source: Associated Press
Move to ease fox hunting ban stirs UK political storm
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
PUBLISHED: 11:49 GMT, 14 July 2015 | UPDATED: 11:49 GMT, 14 July 2015
LONDON (AP) Fox hunting is back on the agenda in Britain, and it's getting bloody.
Prime Minister David Cameron's government has stirred up a political storm by announcing a vote this week to loosen a decade-old ban on the divisive blood sport.
The government abruptly scrapped the vote Tuesday when it looked set to fail, but the issue has unleashed a maelstrom of British divisions, pitting city against country, upper class against the modestly off and English lawmakers against Scottish ones.
Fox hunting, in which groups of riders follow a pack of hounds trained to track down and kill foxes, has long divided Britons. Opponents consider it a cruel pastime reserved for the rich, while supporters say it is an important rural tradition and an effective form of pest control.
Britain banned the sport in 2004 after a long and acrimonious battle that saw hunting supporters clash with riot police outside Parliament.
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