Smokescreen Saturday Sinks Without a Trace

In case you didn’t know – and you almost certainly didn’t – Saturday was National Trail Hunting Day, better known as Smokescreen Saturday. Organised by the pro-hunt British Hound Sports Association, the much-vaunted event was billed as “the day we begin to change minds” on the legitimacy of trail hunting.

In the end, though, it all came to nothing.

The day had descended into farce long before it had even started. Locations, hunts and organisers changed like the weather – with some organisers being dropped when their previous bad behaviour was highlighted, and venues pulling out at the last minute when they were made aware of what their land was really being used for.

The Great British Public stayed away in their millions, MPs were desperate to distance themselves from it, police officers followed national guidance not to attend, and the only piece of media generated was a GB News article with the distinctly unhelpful headline “OUTRAGE AS LABOUR PLANS TO BAN FOX HUNTING.” Yes, even the right-wing libertarians at GB News recognise that trail hunting is ‘code’ for illegal fox hunting.

This is despite the BHSA begging hard-up members to raise £120,000 to fund the events and hire a major PR agency in a bid to ‘dominate the news’ on the day. Needless to say, this failed.

Like everyone else, hunt sabs largely stayed away or confined themselves to demos or covert monitoring at some of the events. Undercover sabs report that different, and smaller, packs of hounds were used to normal hunting days, but huntsmen even had poor control over these and spent a lot of time gathering up lost hounds.

And despite the bright sunshine, the mood was dark amongst hunt supporters. There was constant grumbling about missing a day’s proper cub hunting, real anger at the poor leadership of the BHSA and dismay at the recent revelation that no further trail hunting licenses will be issued on MOD land – the clearest indication yet that the Government is preparing to act on its manifesto commitment to “ban trail hunting.”

An HSA spokesperson commented:

“Given that National Trail Hunting Day was organised by a convicted fox hunter and a senior figure from the discredited Hunting Office we always knew it would be a disaster. What we couldn’t have predicted was how roundly it would by ignored by the very people it was designed to attract – the public, the police, the media and politicians. National Trail Hunting Day turned out to be a complete irrelevance – a performance without an audience – and a ban on the smokescreen of trail hunting has never been closer.”