Longman Back in Parliament with Anti-Hunt Lobby Group
- dereckhoward99
- Oct 21
- 3 min read
The National Police Chiefs Council lead on illegal hunting, Chief Superintendent Matt Longman, spoke to a committee of anti-hunting activists in Parliament, just a few months after he was criticised for comparing trail hunting to serious crimes such as burglary and drug dealing.
On Monday, Mr Longman attended a meeting in the House of Commons organised by the New Hunting Ban: a political pressure group which broke parliamentary standards by falsely describing itself as having a ‘Parliamentary Committee’.
The event was hosted by Neil Duncan Jordan, a former Labour Party MP who lost the whip in July for what a party source told The Times was “persistent knobheadery”. Mr Duncan Jordan now represents Poole as an independent and this summer tried to galvanise cross-party support for reform of the 2004 Hunting Act, to no avail.
In a post on Facebook, the North London Hunt Saboteurs referred to Duncan Jordan, who has a majority of just 18, as one of a “number of leading MPs” in attendance.
Also at the event were representatives from the RSPCA, the League Against Cruel Sports (LACS), and North Dorset Hunt Saboteurs, as well as the Labour MP for Camborne and Redruth Perran Moon. The purpose of the event was to discuss NHB’s proposed changes to the Hunting Act. Unsurprisingly, no pro-hunting organisations were invited.
Mr Longman apparently played a prominent role in the meeting, speaking alongside Chief Inspector Kevin Lacks-Kelly, head of the National Wildlife Crime Unit. Photos show the chief superintendent seated between Neil Duncan Jordan and Rhys Giles, a leading figure in NHB and the North London Hunt Sabs.
The New Hunting Ban is currently holding an ‘open consultation’ on hunting policy, “gathering opinions from the public to help shape our policy recommendations”. However, it doesn’t seem to be a totally open consultation as the survey automatically ends if you select ‘disagree’ to the statement “I do not believe the law, as it stands, is sufficient in preventing hunting with dogs in England & Wales and therefore requires amendment”.
Longman has come under intense scrutiny in the past for his inappropriate links to anti-hunting groups and his willingness to lobby lawmakers in support of changes to the Hunting Act.
FOI requests by the British Hound Sports Association previously revealed that Longman met with representatives from LACS three times in 2024. In March, before the general election, the charity asked him to meet with a Lib Dem who “seems open to the need to tackle trail hunting”.
In another email, Longman said he was “very happy” with media reports which claimed there was bias in the policing of hunts in favour of saboteurs. It followed accusations from former Defence Secretary Ben Wallace that Longman should be removed from post if he cannot police without fear or favour and that there was a “sense of two-tier policing” on the issue.
Longman then emailed LACS about Mr Wallace’s comments, noting he was “very happy” with “how policing has been represented”.
In December 2024, Longman was the keynote speaker at the parliamentary launch of the ‘Time for Change’ campaign to ban trail hunting, in which he said the current law is “not working”. The event was also organised by LACS.
When confronted about his connections to anti-hunting groups and apparent bias against trail hunting, Mr Longman said he is “never asked if I am impartial about burglary or drug dealing”, drawing a disturbing comparison between a legal pastime and crimes that can carry a custodial sentence of up to 14 years in prison.
