Swales said: “The outcome of that from the human rights silk is that as a protected minority group under the Equality Act, we qualify, undoubtedly 10 out of 10.”
The idea that legally they could be considered a protected minority isn’t entirely farfetched, since it includes “religion or belief”, and IIRC “belief” has been found in the past to include vegans and gender critical feminists.
Although vegans and gender critical feminists have never been allowed to break laws. The closest we see is helmet laws for Sikhs and very very limited knife carry laws for other religions. And those are all based on a religiose requirement well documented within their culture.
It will be interesting to see how these people manage to claim the right to kill foxes is somehow a long held requirement. Mainly because it will make any common activity amongst a group of people impossible to legislate against.
They sound like they’re a bit muddled about how the Equality Act actually works though, bless them, based on this other quote from the same article:
“The qualifications of an ethnic group, there are five of them, and we hit everyone straight in the bullseye.”
There are another few instances where the guy specifically says “ethnic group”, and I even chased up the source to check it wasn’t just rubbish reporting, because as you highlight, it’s not too farfetched that they might be considered a protected minority group, but that’s entirely different than them being considered a minority ethnic group.
Unsurprised that the pro-fox-hunting people have more money than sense. I imagine their lawyers are better versed on the equality act than their spokesman, and are making the beliefs argument rather than the ethnic minority one.
I’d like to see what exactly their argument is.
The idea that legally they could be considered a protected minority isn’t entirely farfetched, since it includes “religion or belief”, and IIRC “belief” has been found in the past to include vegans and gender critical feminists.
Although vegans and gender critical feminists have never been allowed to break laws. The closest we see is helmet laws for Sikhs and very very limited knife carry laws for other religions. And those are all based on a religiose requirement well documented within their culture.
It will be interesting to see how these people manage to claim the right to kill foxes is somehow a long held requirement. Mainly because it will make any common activity amongst a group of people impossible to legislate against.
They sound like they’re a bit muddled about how the Equality Act actually works though, bless them, based on this other quote from the same article:
There are another few instances where the guy specifically says “ethnic group”, and I even chased up the source to check it wasn’t just rubbish reporting, because as you highlight, it’s not too farfetched that they might be considered a protected minority group, but that’s entirely different than them being considered a minority ethnic group.
Unsurprised that the pro-fox-hunting people have more money than sense. I imagine their lawyers are better versed on the equality act than their spokesman, and are making the beliefs argument rather than the ethnic minority one.