Britain Passes a Ban on Fox Hunting With Hounds

Britain outlawed fox hunting with hounds in England and Wales as elected legislators won a standoff Thursday with the House of Lords over the popular country sport that is despised by many urbanites.

Some hunting supporters vowed to defy the ban.

The years-long debate over outlawing a sport opponents see as cruel has been highly charged and divisive. Scotland had already outlawed fox hunting.

The elected lower chamber invoked the rarely used 1949 Parliament Act to force the ban into law despite the opposition of the unelected House of Lords. After the Lords rejected one last compromise gesture -- to postpone the effective date until 2006 -- Michael Martin, the speaker of the House of Commons, announced that the bill had been passed.

The formality of royal assent followed within 45 minutes.

Supporters of fox hunting pledged to go to court to fight the ban, which will take effect in three months.

“True civil disobedience is now on the horizon,” John Jackson, chairman of the pro-hunting Countryside Alliance, said as the House of Commons voted.

About 2,000 whistling, banner-waving hunting supporters gathered Thursday night outside Windsor Castle, where Queen Elizabeth II was staging a banquet in honor of French President Jacques Chirac.

“There are a lot of angry people here, people of all ages and from all backgrounds, who are fed up with being ignored,” said Ian Agnew, chairman of the Surrey Union Hunt.

Prime Minister Tony Blair, who failed in a bid to reach a compromise to regulate hunting, agreed with both sides that the battle was likely to move quickly to the courts.

It is legal to shoot foxes, but the legislation bans all hunting with hounds, including the pursuit of rabbits and deer.

Opponents of hunting with hounds, in which dogs kill foxes by tearing them apart, say the practice is unacceptably cruel. They also deride it as a mainly aristocratic pastime -- Prince Charles and other royals are among the most prominent participants.

Supporters argue that hunting with hounds is not inhumane because the prey die quickly.

They say it attracts fans from all walks of life, not just the upper classes, and is central to rural Britain’s culture and economy.

They say a ban would put up to 8,000 people out of work, employees of about 200 hunts as well as saddlers, blacksmiths, grooms and stable hands.

The 1949 act had been used only three other times: to lower the age of consent for homosexual sex, to allow British courts to try Nazis suspected of war crimes and to change the electoral system for selecting deputies to the European Parliament.