SENSE PREVAILS
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peter Gilder's High Court victory against Dover Harbour Board should be welcomed by any haulier, regardless of their Feelings about the export of live animals.
The Cheltenham-based operator was going about his business lawfully, in the face of mass intimidation and threats of violence while the Port Authority stood accused of "surrendering to mob rule." Had the High Court upheld Dover Harbour Board's decision to bar animal exports, then the financial consequences For Gilder could have been terminal.
In February, his company's weekly turnover had slumped by more than 90% after Dover Harbour Board imposed its own unilateral ban on the export of livestock. Given that, Gilder's legal fight was literally one for survival.
Now the livestock carrier faces a major legal bill and the daunting prospect of trying to recoup it through action against the very institution which turned its back on him, namely Dover Harbour Board. However, any satisfaction in Gilder's victory must be tempered by the realisation that the protests against the carriage of livestock to the Continent, from any British port, are not going to go away. And that the most vociferous of protesters look set to step up the intimidation and possible illegal action in order to get their way.
Hauliers going about their legitimate business are still likely to have to run a gauntlet of so-called "committed" protesters, some of whom are prepared to use violence to ensure that they get their way. It's the kind of intimidation tipper operators faced when they kept the power stations and steelworks in business during the miners' strike of the middle eighties. Mob rule didn't win the day then either. But it certainly required some operators with strong nerves to see the job through. If animal rights protesters are so concerned about livestock protests, what have they been doing to ensure that livestock operators from other EU countries treat their cargoes in the some regulated way that UK hauliers do? And here's the rub. Britain can implement as many rules as the European Commission and Ministry of Agriculture can come up with. But will the same commitment to enforcing the law— whether for animal rights,or animal rights protesters—be present across the channel?
National Farmers Union president, Sir David Naish, now wants the trade to proceed: "according to the highest possible standards." Whatever your load, be it animal, vegetable or mineral, For lawabiding hauliers everywhere that's clearly the best way to beat mob rule.