Rule-breaking Anti-Hunt Group Returns to Parliament
- dereckhoward99
- Dec 18, 2025
- 3 min read
The New Hunting Ban, a political pressure group which previously broke parliamentary standards, returned to Parliament on 16 December, this time to publish their legislative recommendations to ban trail hunting. The campaign group is preparing to intensify pressure on the government ahead of ministers' planned public consultation on the issue.
At the event, Labour MP Neil Duncan-Jordan announced he has begun drafting a Private Members' Bill based on these recommendations, to be titled the Hunting Act 2004 (Amendment) Bill.
The Littlest Member
Duncan-Jordan was elected as Labour MP for Poole in July 2024 with a majority of just 18 votes, one of the smallest in the UK Parliament. His tenure has been chaotic: in July 2025, he had the whip removed for organising rebellions against the government on winter fuel payments and welfare reform. One Labour Party source told The Times that Duncan-Jordan had been expelled along with three other MPs for "persistent knobheadery," amid suspicions they were considering joining a new party led by Jeremy Corbyn. The whip was restored in November.
Recently, Duncan-Jordan spent a day following the Grafton Hunt, later complaining:
“Throughout the day there were individuals following us, filming and taking pictures whilst refusing to speak or engage with me. I understand why local residents feel intimidated. I’m not sure you would behave like that unless you had something to hide”.
The irony appears lost on him. Hunt saboteurs routinely wear balaclavas, follow and film hunt supporters, and frequently behave aggressively toward members of the public. For an MP championing sabs’ cause to suddenly discover that being filmed and followed feels intimidating raises an obvious question: does he not see the contradiction? Or is this simply convenient rabble-rousing from a politician who may already have written off his seat?
What is difficult to understand is why the MP for Poole declined an invitation to National Trail Hunting Day by the BHSA, including a meet only twenty miles from his constituency, yet chose instead to make a nearly 300-mile round trip to accompany sabs at the Grafton in Northamptonshire. His constituents might reasonably ask how that served their interests. If the trip was funded from the public purse, taxpayers are entitled to know why.
The Saboteurs Behind the Scenes
At the campaign's centre is Rhys Giles, Director of The New Hunting Ban and a prominent member of North London Hunt Saboteurs, who brings with him a documented history of controversial behaviour Giles was recently caught on camera playing audio of hounds in cry from a speaker during a hunt, a deliberate tactic used by saboteurs to confuse and redirect the hounds, often towards busy roads.
Alongside Giles is fellow North London sab Philip Waters, whose criminal record stretches back to the early 2000s. Reports indicate Waters received a 15-month driving ban for drink driving in November 2003, along with a fine for driving an uninsured vehicle in northwest Wiltshire. In March 2004, sources report he was handed a two-year community rehabilitation order and another three-year driving ban after again driving without insurance. In 2008, Waters was reportedly charged at Colindale police station with criminal damage and destruction of property worth more than £5,000, as well as assault and battery.
An MP with an 18-vote majority, expelled from his party for "persistent knobheadery," is drafting legislation in partnership with activists who deploy disruptive tactics in the field and carry extensive criminal records. He complains about feeling intimidated by being filmed, maybe he should ask how the rest of us feel being governed by him?
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