Stuart Anderson, Tory MP for South Shropshire has released a dodgy opinion poll on the Labour government’s plans to enact a stronger ban on trail hunting. Both Anderson’s poll and his statements at the recent parliamentary debate on rural communities are questionable to say the least.
Relative newcomer Anderson is joining the like of far-right Reform UK party Leader Nigel Farage, who nailed his colours firmly to the mast once again when he attended a Boxing Day Hunt in Kent. He’s also in company with Conservative MP for Thirsk and Malton Kevin Hollinrake, who has been spearheading the parliamentary pro-bloodsport camp.
Before his parliamentary career Anderson was a lance corporal in Northern Ireland and a soldier in Bosnia, Iraq and Kosovo. After leaving the army, he continued his trajectory of supporting foreign occupations by working as a bodyguard handling security for US officials during the 2003 occupation of Iraq. He got into politics after the collapse of his private security firm, Anubis Associates. Anderson, a Brexit supporter, provoked controversy after he shafted employees of Anubis by paying himself illegal dividend of £54,000, at a time when the company was collapsing and other workers hadn’t been paid. He only repaid a piddling £2000.
Anderson’s dodgy poll
Anderson shared a video on Facebook with a headline that 63% of South Shropshire residents who took part in a recent poll were against tightening the law on trail hunting. However, it doesn’t take much investigation to see that these figures are hardly representative.
Only 1899 South Shropshire residents responded to the poll, out of 76,723 of Anderson’s constituents. That’s less than 2.5% of South Shropshire residents, and only 63% of them said they were against the government’s plans for a tightened ban. So Anderson’s poll simply showed that 1196 residents were against the ban. That’s just 1.5%, not very representative at all.
Moreover, Anderson doesn’t claim that this is a random poll, in fact the 1899 people were probably drawn from his supporters, who are likely to support fox hunting. This fact didn’t escape those who read Anderson’s post on Facebook, one person quite rightly asked:
“Can you confirm the political affiliation of the 1899 people who completed the survey please? Likely that the majority who saw the survey on social media or on your website were supporters of yours, so it probably wasn’t truly representative of the electorate.
Please don’t dress it up as the views of the majority of South Shropshire.”
Protect the Wild’s Rob Pownall was also unimpressed by Anderson’s poll. He commented:
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The law has been failing to protect foxes
Anderson took part in the debate on ‘rural communities that took place in parliament on 7 January, flying the flag for fox hunting. He wheeled out another set of deeply unconvincing figures to try to persuade the house that the supposed fact that there were “only” 44 convictions of fox hunters between 2003 and 2024 meant that hunts hadn’t been committing crimes. He said:
“Based on those statistics, they should not ban anything, because the stats do not support the idea that there is widespread criminality in trail hunting. There is no evidence of that at all.”
Leaving the figures aside for a second, anyone who has been paying attention will see that the police are reluctant to make arrests in relation to wildlife crimes. A recent report by Wildlife and Countryside Link, for example, found that the police and courts did not take crimes against non-human animals seriously and didn’t put enough resources into them. Sabs and monitors have documented literally hundreds of examples of hunts flouting the law and rarely is anyone arrested or brought before the courts. When prosecutions do happen, they often fail.
To give just one example, The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) dropped a seemingly cast iron case against the Holderness Hunt last year. The Hunt had been caught red handed allowing its hounds to chase and kill a vixen. The footage from Hull Wildlife Monitors was clear as day, but the CPS dropped it. Claiming the evidence was insufficient.
Protect the Wild’s Charlotte Smith wrote at the time:
“the law protects hunters. It shields them behind loopholes. It fails wildlife, saboteurs, and monitors alike.
This is the reality for those trying to uphold a failing law. Volunteers risk their safety, gather evidence, and confront the cruelty head-on. Yet, again and again, justice slips through the cracks”
One thing’s for sure, the pro-hunt side can’t seem to get their story straight either. In a recent debate aired on BBC Five, Tim Bonner – CEO of the pro-hunt Countryside Alliance made the opposite argument to Anderson. Bonner argued that, because there have been some convictions under the current Hunting Act, it shows that the Act is fit for purpose and doesn’t need to be changed. Bonner and Anderson have at least one thing in common, they are both feeding the public with straw-man arguments.
Numbers aren’t Anderson’s strong suit
However, the figures that Anderson presented to parliament are also wrong. Protect the Wild has been monitoring the number of hunting related convictions and we have recorded a total of 59 convictions covering 78 charges of illegal hunting under Section 1 of the Hunting Act. There has been a significant uptick in the number of successful prosecutions since 2022.
On top of that, we are aware of a further eight cases of illegal hunting where defendants are currently still awaiting trial.
Rural people hate hunting too
Anderson’s poll and Facebook post feeds in to an age-old falsehood, that the government’s plans to strengthen the ban are an attack on rural communities and that rural people overwhelmingly support hunting. To be frank, its the same old crap that the Countryside Alliance has been reeling out for more than two decades now.
There’s virtually no difference between rural opinions on fox hunting in the UK and urban ones. A YouGov poll on 29 December 2025 found that 50% of rural Britons surveyed supported the government’s proposed ban, while 35% of rural people polled opposed it. That’s a pretty similar figure to the UK overall. YouGov found that 50% of the total number of UK respondents in the UK supported the government’s planned ban, while only 29% opposed it.
Protect the Wild’s Rob Pownall slammed the pro-hunt side’s duplicity in this video responding to a speech made at one of this year’s Boxing Day Hunt:
Anderson used the 7 January debate to trot out another tired argument about hunts being a “cherished” part of the community and supportong rural economies too. But the YouGov stats showed that other rural people didn’t agree with him. Their poll found that up to 58% of rural people thought that hunting was not important socially or economically to rural communities.
Protect the Wild commissioned a Find Out Now poll in 2025 which yielded stronger results. It found that 60% of rural respondents and 72% of urban respondents would support a stronger ban on hunting and nearly 50% of rural respondents believed hunting with hounds was not being conducted legally in their area.
Rural people versus hunting
A recent report by Protect the Wild entitled ‘Rural people versus hunting’ found that:
“the “town vs. country divide” simply does not exist. Rural sentiment mirrors urban sentiment around 10%, a reflection of lived experience, rooted in direct experience of the harm hunts cause: hounds trespassing through gardens, scaring livestock, roads blocked, threats made, and property damaged, not ideology. Far from preserving tradition, hunting with hounds has become synonymous with fear, conflict, and disorder in rural life.”
The report looked at reputable opinion polls that have been conducted between 2004, when the Hunting Act came into place, and today. It found that:
“Despite pro-hunt organisations, such as the Countryside Alliance, British Hound Sports Association,and previously the Hunting Office, and Masters of Foxhounds Association, frequently claiming that hunting enjoys rural backing, no credible public surveys in the last 20 years show a majority of rural residents supporting fox hunting.”
In case you don’t believe us, here are the surveys we looked at:
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2004 (YouGov): 61% supported the Hunting Act ban; 30% opposed.
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2005 (Ipsos MORI/BBC Countryfile): 47% supported the ban; 26% opposed; Scotland showed 52% support vs 21% oppose.
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2008 (Animal Aid / Guardian): 70–72% wanted the ban to continue.
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2009 (Ipsos MORI for IFAW & LACS): 75% supported keeping the ban; 72% of rural respondents agreed, minimal rural/urban difference.
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2011-2020: Rising Opposition and a Unified Countryside.
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2012 (Ipsos MORI): 76% opposed re-legalising fox hunting; 81% opposed deer hunting; 83% opposed hare coursing.
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2015 (YouGov, 10-Year Anniversary): 51% supported, 33% opposed; little difference between urban (52%) and rural (49%).
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2015 (Ipsos MORI for LACS): 83% wanted the ban upheld; rural 84%, urban 82%.
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2016 (Ipsos MORI): 84% against legalising fox hunting; rural opposition 82%.
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2017 (Survation): 64% opposed repeal; only 11% supported. Even among
Conservatives, just 16% wanted hunting re-legalised.
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2019 (YouGov for LACS): 79% supported closing “trail hunting” loopholes; 74% supported jail terms for illegal hunting.
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2021–2023 (YouGov tracker): 70–80% opposed recreational hunting; no regional divide.
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2024 (YouGov 20-Year Poll): 79% want the ban to remain; 12% favour repeal.
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2024 (Find Out Now/Electoral Calculus for LACS): 76% support strengthening the law; 70% of rural voters agree; 58% would back pro-ban political candidates.
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2024 (Protect the Wild/Survation): Only 18% believe trail hunting is genuine; strong majority say it’s a cover for illegal hunting and want stricter legislation.
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2025 (Protect the Wild/Find out now): 60% of rural respondents and 72% of urban respondents would support a stronger ban on hunting and nearly 50% of rural respondents believed hunting with hounds was not being conducted legally in their area.
Charlotte Smith who authored the report carried out 10 in-depth interviews with rural people who had all suffered due to the actions of hunts. The stories were bleak, recounting riders and hounds rampaging through gardens and, in one case, the killing of a cherished family pet. These respondents told a wholly different story to Anderson, one of chaos caused and of aggression, arrogance and a cold disregard for the lives of people in rural areas.
As we head towards a strengthened ban on trail hunting, we need to be prepared to hear these same arguments again and again. But repetition doesn’t make the pro-hunt rhetoric any more true. Both rural and urban people overwhelmingly oppose hunting and support a strengthened ban. Use Protect the Wild’s automated tool to email your MP now and and register your support for workable ban.
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Take a look at our report on how difficult it really is to get a hunting conviction.
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Sign our petition calling for a proper ban on hunting, and check out our proposal for a workable ban on the hunting of mammals with hounds.
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Read Protect the Wild’s 2025 report, ‘The True Face of Hunting with Hounds’.