The Badger Trust had a general meeting today [Friday 12 October], and David Williams, their Chairman, asked me to send a message.
The Badger Trust are now trusted friends, of course – we have worked together a lot over the last couple of years, battling away to try to stop the badgers from being persecuted …
Now they are also part of our consortium of animal groups, Team Badger. This is what I wrote.
Dear Badger Trust.
This is Brian May. I’m happy to be able to address you, courtesy of your Chairman, Dave Williams.
I wanted to take this chance to salute all of you in the Badger Trust, who have been dedicated for so long to speaking up for one of Britain’s most loved, yet most abused residents, the Badgers. You have led the fight for so long, for the right of these wonderful creatures, to live and breathe and raise their familes in the countryside that we share, free of abuse and persecution.
You have been fighting callousness and disregard in those who would cover our planet in concrete, destroying the habitat of our wild creatures; you have been fighting ignorance and cruelty in the despicable badger-baiters, and in sporadic vengeful attacks on badgers from people who unfairly blamed them for their troubles. Now you have to fight a government, with the same old mistaken beliefs, hell-bent on a morally and scientifically unjustifiable course of slaughter, which will destroy the badger community forever, through the senseless slaughter of 70 per cent of their number.
These are the grimmest of times. But now you are not alone. In recent months, under the banner of TeamBadger, the whole animal-aware community has come together in a way that has never, ever, been seen before, to stand alongside you in your fight for what is right. You now have, behind you, the hearts and minds of the RSPCA, The League Against Cruel Sports, the Humane Society International, Stroud 100, Gloucestershire Against Badger Shooting, Animal Aid, Network for Animals, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, The David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation, Blue Badger (Conservatives against the Badger Cull), Born Free and Peta, and now the RSPB, as well as my own campaign, Save-Me. All of these organisations are dedicated to winning this war, working in different areas in a coordinated way. You also have the support of over 150,000 British people who have signed our petition on the Government’s own website.
Because of this support, we have been able to ask for a debate in Parliament on the issue. I have personally invited all interested MPs to a meeting this Monday 15th, in the House of Commons, to consolidate our initiative to bring the debate in. The following day, the 16th October, our leading MPs, from all political parties, will represent Team Badger at the Back Bench Business Committee Meeting with a view to getting a full commons debate in the chamber. With full cross-party support, we are very optimistic that we will be granted the debate.
At this point, it would be a good time for all of us to write to our MP’s one more time, asking them to attend the debate, and vote to stop the cull.
I, along with my CEO Anne Brummer and Gavin Grant of the RSPCA, have been in Brussels this week seeking support from the European Parliament and the European Commission. We found great enthusiasm from everyone we met, and have every hope that Europe will be our ally in finding a humane solution to the Bovine TB Problem in cows, rather than the appalling route of the destruction of badgers. All these initiatives, along with great work from our TeamBadger colleagues in the field in Gloucestershire and Somerset, will combine to increase the pressure on David Cameron, to the point where he will hopefully reconsider and reshape this ill-conceived policy.
The forces we face are very powerful, but we have the power of the certainty that we are in the right.
I have finally been moved to tweet, as of this week, and my favourite rallying call these days is borrowed from The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
I firmly believe that it will be all right in the end, and if it is not yet all right, it is not yet the end!!
With love, from Save Me and Team Badger.
Brian May
Now that we are close to getting our debate in the House of Commons … now is the time to get writing, please, one more time, folks. I’ve met a lot of MPs of all parties in recent weeks, and I have learned that it DOES make a difference to an MP when he or she gets a load of letters on a subject in the mail. It makes them pay attention, and get a little jolt, wondering if there is something important going on which might affect the number of votes they get next time ! So please DO write to your local MP, in the next few days, asking him in the strongest possible terms to vote against the awful, misguided badger cull. OK? That way, perhaps they will be encouraged to stay and listen to the debate – maybe even take part – and hopefully vote on the side of justice for our black and white friends.
And … pray. For we are so close to bloody butchery.
THANKS!!
Bri
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