Christopher Graffius
Reporting on the BASC
Christopher Graffius
Christopher Graffius has been the Director of Communications for BASC since 2001; prior to that he worked for eighteen years in and around politics with posts in the British Council, as a political press officer, the manager for a Commons whips office, as a lobbyist and campaigner.
He is the author of a guide to the election of 1997 and a university course on political campaigning. Formerly a keen follower of the beagles and minkhounds when he lived in the South, he writes and lectures on politics whenever his shooting and fishing in North Wales leaves him time.
I’m an admirer of Midge Todhunter’s The Master’s Voice - one of the best reads on the web - so am happy to follow up his suggestion of trying a shooting column. Such a column makes sense. As I keep telling non-fieldsports types - you can’t break us up into hunters, shooters and fishermen. Most of us have an interest in all three.
I work as the Director of Communications for the British Association for Shooting and Conservation and am involved on a day to day basis with our political relations. As all our thoughts turn to the next election I thought it might be helpful to sketch out how we view the politics of shooting.
Shooting and Fishing
One of the differences between hunting, shooting and fishing is their legislative foundations. Shooting has a formidable legislative underpinning both in the UK and Europe. In Britain these were founded on the desire of royalty, nobility and gentry to protect their game from poaching.
There are a number of Game Acts, ranging from 1782 to 1970 still on the statute book. We can add to this the Wildlife and Countryside Act, which governs fowling, pest control and seasons, the Firearms Acts, animal welfare legislation and food safety laws. The latest book to cover the subject, published in 1997, lists more than a hundred separate pieces of domestic legislation. In addition in Europe we have directives on firearms, birds and habitats as well as the more recent European Charter for Sustainable Hunting – on the continent when they say “hunting” they mean “shooting”.
Any anti wishing to ban shooting would be attempting to untie a legislative Gordian Knot – which is one of the reasons why we’ve never had a Bill to ban shooting, but instead proposed legislation that dabbles around the edges of the issue. Any anti would also have a tough time in Europe and would be ill-advised to tangle with a French peasant who won their right to hunt from the aristocracy at the Revolution and are certainly not going to let it go now.
The first point to make is that - as all hunters know - we can’t ignore politics. It’s a fact of life that the legal basis for our sport is determined by parliamentarians and civil servants, most of whom don’t shoot, fish or hunt. They can be remarkably ignorant of what we do - which reminds me of the MP who when asked what he thought of beagling replied that he considered it cruel to beagles and weren’t they endangered anyway?
We seek to counter this with a programme of education and information. We introduce MPs to clay shooting, take a shooting simulator to the Commons for those who can’t find the time to get to a clay ground and hold game tastings. We arrange visits to syndicates, shoot days, wildfowling and stalking trips. We make a point of meeting and briefing MPs who comment or ask parliamentary questions on shooting and we provide the secretariat to the All Party Group on Shooting and Conservation which holds meetings on aspects of the sport when parliament is sitting. We do similar work in the parliaments and assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as participating in the work of the European Federation of Hunters in Brussels.
We are resolutely non-party political - one of our five objectives is to secure all-party support for shooting. If all political parties are committed to supporting shooting then the issue is taken out of political controversy. The principle of shooting is broadly accepted and we’re left discussing the details. Much of our work at this stage of the cycle is to ensure that political parties have manifesto commitments to support shooting - it might surprise you to learn, for example, that the Labour Party has made such a pledge in every manifesto since 1979. Being non-partisan means that we can work with any government of any political colour - one of the good things about our politics is that we’re not a one party state. Sooner or later the party of government will change and we want to be able to work with them all and we want them all to support shooting.
It’s inevitable that the MPs we work with don’t always support our line. There will be those who are pro- fishing but anti shooting, or pro-shooting and anti-hunting. There will be differences on snaring or airguns. That’s part of the warp and weft of political conversation. The key to successful political relations is not to write anyone off. By working on the areas of agreement you can often develop support and change minds. There are, of course, the small minority of convinced antis in parliament. We don’t even write them off, but while they remain antis we want to keep them in the box marked “extremist” and demonstrate that we are the reasonable, practical, professional side of the argument.
None of this means that we’re complacent about politics. Politicians have the capacity to do enormous damage to our sport, normally in response to public outrage following a random mass killing such as at Hungerford or Dunblane. It’s worth remembering that after those tragedies the laws restricting shooting - and banning pistols - were introduced by Conservative governments. While we’re not complacent we aim to be positive. It’s all too easy to scaremonger about the future of shooting, to develop a persecution complex and regard ourselves as victims - almost a separate tribe from the rest of the population. That way lies marginalisation and defeat. We want shooting to be at the heart of our national life, accepted and valued for its environmental benefits, economic contribution and the provision of food far beyond the shooting community.
Finally, we aim to be professional; to maintain high standards and produce quality work. We aim to retain staff with the skills we need and it’s no accident that BASC is the only fieldsports body with expert departments for firearms, the individual shooting disciplines, conservation and land management. Keeping that expertise and professionalism costs - which is why BASC membership subs are among the highest in shooting. Our members value that - which is why we’re also the largest fieldsports organisation in the UK and one of the largest in Europe. Being professional ensures that we are regarded as an authority on our subject; a key stakeholder to be consulted by government when change is in the air.
Political scientists often distinguish between “inside” and “outside” organisations. The “outside” organisation is out on the street with banners and slogans. The “inside” organisation is at the table with the Minister and civil servants deciding the issues. BASC aims to be an “inside” organisation whatever the party of government. It might not give the instant relief of banging the table, waving a banner or condemning out of hand, but the compensation of keeping shooting sports flourishing, popular and safe is more than enough for me.Christopher Graffius
Director of Communications for the BASC