Masked Mobs, Flag Raids and the Racism They Can't Hide

Now that the trail hunting season is drawing to a close, hunt saboteurs have wasted no time in finding new ways to terrorise local communities. If they can't disrupt a legal hunt, they'll disrupt something else. It really is them against the countryside. 

Members of the Brighton Hunt Saboteurs and Shropshire Monitors have been descending on villages in gangs to remove flags – dressed head to toe in black and faces hidden behind balaclavas. Uninvited, unwanted and entirely unbothered about the chaos they leave behind.

On 12 March in Shrewsbury, Shropshire Monitor's Tristan Pearce led such a gang that threatened an elderly villager who had simply asked them to leave the village’s flags alone. The incident escalated, prompting armed police to attend the scene.

Pearce is no stranger to this kind of anti-social behaviour – he is already known for trespassing, disrupting legal trail hunts and intimidating hunt supporters. According to one local source, the hunts aren't his only target: "It's not just hunts Tristan terrifies, he also does it to his neighbours." Love thy neighbour, apparently, is optional.

On 22 March, the Brighton Hunt Saboteurs openly admitted that although trail hunting had ended, they "weren't ready for a weekend off yet." So, they joined the Brighton Anti Fascists - a group with a track record that includes targeting bald men at demonstrations, throwing missiles at police officers and acting in a thug-like and threatening way. Together, the two groups travelled to Horley to continue their weekend hobby of disruption.

On their gloating Facebook post, the group declared: "No racist dogwhistles on our streets! Not many people we hate as much as hunters but racists are one of them!"

Bold words. Particularly bold given what one of their own published not long ago.

In October 2025, the Welsh Border Wildlife Protectors posted to Facebook about their day spent badgering the Wynnstay Hunt in Herefordshire. Among the photos was an image of a young black woman on a horse. The caption? "Erm…"

Apparently, the sight of a black person supporting a hunt was simply too much to process.

As if the caption wasn't bad enough, the comments went further. One supporter, Jan Smith, wrote: "that's the first time I've seen a black person fox hunting." The comment has since been deleted, presumably once someone realised how it looked. The screenshot, however, remains on the record.

So: the same community that turns up to anti-racism protests on their weekends off cannot fathom why a black woman might enjoy riding horses. The same people who descend on peaceful villages to tear down flags treat a young woman's presence at a hunt as a punchline.

The hypocrisy would be staggering, if it wasn't so consistent:

Demonstrated racist beliefs towards Iraqis, calling them “vile, vile people” and saying she was “so happy” when her son’s marriage to an Iraqi broke down.

In March 2022, she was racist to a landowner when sabbing, resulting in a caution from the police (Hunting for the Truth catalogued this on Facebook).

The founder of brand agency Propaganda, and founded the make-up brand Illamasqua,  which have been branded “racist”.

Angela Vasiliu and Ricky Frazer Southall, both heavily involved with ‘Anonymous for the Voiceless’, which has been heavily criticised by other animal rights activists and vegans for racism and ableism.