A cohort of British celebrities, including Dame Judi Dench, Ricky Gervais and Joanna Lumley have joined forces to urge UK Prime Minister, Theresa May, to ban fur imports.
In an open letter to the Prime Minister dated today (12 March), the 31 stars, showing their support for the #FurFreeBritain campaign run by a group of prominent animal charities, urge the government’s action to ban the import and sale of animal fur in the UK.
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The UK banned fur farming in 2000. According to Humane Society International, there is no legal requirement to use the specific word “fur” on items containing real fur. EU regulations do require items defined as “textile products” to carry the wording “contains non-textile parts of animal origin” but as well as not clearly telling consumers it means “real animal fur”, in practice this wording requirement is rarely adhered to at all, it says.
“Mrs May, the animal fur arriving in British ports is from animals who have suffered a lifetime in tiny barren cages, often driven insane by neglect,” the letter reads. “It is from animals who have been brutally electrocuted or gassed, and sometimes even skinned alive. It is from animals caught and left for days in barbaric leg-hold traps. They endure all of this to then have their fur processed into a frivolous trim on a hat, coat, shoe or handbag. We should not trade on their suffering.”
The support from the celebrities, which also includes Sir Andy Murray OBE and Jilly Cooper CBE, comes as a UK Government and Parliament petition approaches its 23 March deadline and nears the target of 100,000 signatures required to trigger a parliamentary debate on the UK fur trade.
“We are delighted that so many of the UK’s best-loved celebrities have spoken out in favour of a Fur Free Britain,” says a Fur Free Britain campaign spokesperson. “Their words echo the calls from the vast majority of the British public who want to see an end to animal fur being imported onto our shores. The UK banned fur farming almost two decades ago because of animal suffering, but we continue to import that same cruelty from other countries such as Canada, China, Poland, and the US, where the appalling suffering continues. We urge Theresa May and her government to put an end to this double standard.”
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By GlobalDataThe #FurFreeBritain campaign is calling on the government to make the UK a fur-free zone by extending the existing bans on imports of cat, dog, and seal fur to all fur-bearing species. As a member of the European Single Market, under rules relating to the free movement of goods, the UK is not currently at liberty to ban imports of animal fur, which is produced in several European countries. But Brexit gives the government the freedom to reflect the public’s distaste for all real fur and close our borders fully to this cruel and archaic trade.
The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee last week launched the enquiry to examine the current fur trade and how the industry can be made more transparent for consumers.
The move follows an investigation by Sky News in December, which found furs from fox, rabbit, chinchilla and mink in items such as hats, shoes, scarves, and coats sold by retailers including Not on the High Street, FatFace, Tesco, and Miss Bardo. The items were all advertised as containing faux fur.
MPs to question UK retailers over fur labelled as faux
