The Feed

Trail Hunting and Nigel Farage’s Latest Dress-Up Act

As Labour signals plans to ban trail hunting, arguing it is routinely used to circumvent the foxhunting ban, Nigel Farage has emerged as a vocal defender of the practice. The article examines the origins of trail hunting as a post-2004 workaround, the evidence that it has blurred into illegal hunting, and Farage’s role in recasting the issue as a symbolic fight over rural identity. It argues that his involvement prioritises performance and spectacle over legal clarity or animal welfare, turning a question of enforcement into another exercise in political dress-up.

Nigel Farage has thrown his support behind trail hunting as the government moves to close what critics say is a long-standing loophole in the foxhunting ban. His intervention leans heavily on imagery and identity, framing a legal question about animal welfare as a cultural battle over the countryside.

The practice of hunting foxes with hounds, banned in England and Wales under the Hunting Act 2004 due to animal welfare concerns, but remaining a subject of political, legal, and cultural debate.