Friday, 24 June 2011


Illustrating why it will never be a serious newspaper, The Independent pronounces with great fanfare: "Victory in the campaign to ban circus animals", claiming: "Government concedes defeat after bribes and intimidation fail to deter rebels".

There has been no "victory", of course. Yesterday's debate was a "take note" motion, which seeks to instruct the government but which has no legislative effect. The government can (and will) ignore it leaving Pritchard with the procedural option of mounting a motion of no confidence – which he isn't going to get.

For the record, the motion reads
That this House directs the Government to use its powers under section 12 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 to introduce a regulation banning the use of all wild animals in circuses to take effect by 1 July 2012.
This is more than a little interesting, because Pritchard was not seeking primary legislation – as in a Private Member's Bill – but was seeking to prevail upon the government to use existing welfare legislation to implement a ban. In so doing – as I pointed out in my earlier piece – he has collided head on with the European Union – and the doctrine of the occupied field. Animal welfare is an occupied field.

Herein lies a fascinating development for, having now had a chance to look at the whole debate, one finds that the EU was briefly referred to by Pritchard – and in a lot more detail by other speakers. The circus elephant was very much in the room, circling the backbenches, trumpeting for all it was worth – the nature of which we are going to have to look at in another post.

Nevertheless, I can happily stand by my original view of this MP, but there are an awful lot of people playing games here, on an issue which, in the UK, actually affects only 39 animals.

Thus, while the man pretending to be our prime minister was jetting over to Brussels to save civilisation as we know it, our MPs were battling with EU law, without the first glimmer of understanding, while HMG, impaled on the hook, was struggling to find more and more ways of explaining why it could not act.

The debate was thus a fine study of impotence, ignorance and stupidity, all combined, with the House frittering away its time and passion discussing the fate of less than two score creatures, about which it has the power to do nothing. What a graphic example this is of the decline and fall of a once-great institution.


The future of Europe's economy hangs in the balance and our MPs were debating banning circus animals yesterday afternoon. It was only a "take note" motion, fronted by Mark Pritchard, Tory MP for the Wrekin, so it had no legislative effect. But the real stupidity of the debate was that it could not have any effect. This is a matter of EU competence.

Nevertheless, MPs from all sides of the House rallied round Pritchard - who claimed that Downing Street tried to bribe him with the prospect of a government job to get him to change his position – and supported the motion without a division.

In the House, the call for a ban was opposed by Agriculture Minister Jim Paice. He said he shared the views of MPs concerned about the use of performing animals, but warned there could be "legal challenges" to a ban as proposed by Pritchard.

Opening the debate, Pritchard described the government's behaviour as "mysterious", and said he had initially been offered a "pretty trivial job" if he agreed to drop or amend the Commons motion calling for a ban. He also claimed he had received a call from the prime minister's office, telling him that David Cameron would look upon it "dimly" if he pushed for a vote on strengthening protection for animals.

This provoked an extraordinary response from Pritchard who, in rejecting the blandishments and threats, told the House:
Well, I have a message for the Whips and for the Prime Minister of our country—I did not pick a fight with the Prime Minister of our country, but I have a message. I might be just a little council house lad from a very poor background, but that background gives me a backbone, it gives me a thick skin, and I am not going to kowtow to the Whips or even the Prime Minister of my country on an issue that I feel passionately about and on which I have conviction.

There might be some people with other backbones in this place, on our side and the other side, who will speak later, but we need a generation of politicians with a bit of spine, not jelly. I will not be bullied by any of the Whips. This is an issue on which I have campaigned for many years. In the previous Parliament I had an Adjournment debate and I spoke in the passage of the Animal Welfare Act 2006. I have consistently campaigned on this issue, and I will not kowtow to unnecessary, disproportionate pressure.
That may be the case, but one has to observe that his background most certainly does not confer on him any brains. Dim even by Tory standards, Pritchard should know that when the government acts in such a "mysterious" manner, there is usually one very good reason – the European Union.

The problem this idiot has is that legislation on the welfare of circus animals is an occupied fieldunder EU law, which means that while there is no specific EU legislation on the issue, the UK cannot itself pass legislation without the approval of the Commission. This, it would be most unlikely to get, as the Council is already on the case with a declaration on animal welfare, as part of its general policy review on this issue.

That it is an occupied field is demonstrated by Commission Regulation (EC) No 1739/2005 of 21 October 2005, laying down animal health requirements for the movement of circus animals between Member States.

As to an outright ban on "ethical" grounds, there are the underlying treaty principles of the free movement of services and freedom of establishment. This means that, under internal market provisions, even if the British government could ban UK registered circuses from using wild animals (which it cannot), it could not prevent enterprises from other member states from displaying performing wild animals. Hence the "legal challenges" alluded to by Paice, if a ban was imposed. They would come from circus owners as well as the Commission.

Altogether, then, Pritchard and his supporters made complete fools of themselves, but so did the minister – displaying the classic inability, common to successive governments, to admit how much power they have subcontracted to their head office in Brussels. And how desperately sad it is that not a single MP was bright enough to spot that elephant - not in the room but, rather appropriately, in the circus. The whole thing is just an idle charade.