Thousands march to "reclaim countryside"

Hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world converged on London today to take part in a march for rural rights.

After months of preparation, as many as 300,000 people were expected at the Liberty and Livelihood march which brought large swathes of the city to a stand-still.

At a press conference to launch the march, a celebrity line-up of stars turned out to support the cause.

Ex-footballer-turned actor Vinnie Jones, Edward Fox, Clarissa Dickson-Wright, Olympic gold medallist shooting competitor Richard Foulds and Kate Hoey MP looked on as John Jackson, chairman of the Countryside Alliance declared the march was about country people reclaiming the countryside.

He said many of the marchers would be from the hunting community because hunting had become "the touchstone issue".

The way the Government deals with the matter "will be watched like a hawk", he said.

The marchers set off from Hyde Park Corner and Blackfriars Bridge at 10am - ending around 6pm after all the marchers have paraded through Parliament Square.

Mr Jackson said a delegation from the Countryside Alliance would be delivering a 10-point open letter to the Prime Minister at the end of the march.

"What we are saying is that we want Government legislation on hunting to be clearly based on the evidence, to be just and to recognise the rights of local communities," he said.

Richard Burge, chief executive of the Countryside Alliance, said there would be people from diverse communities on the march.

Some were coming from Walsall, in the West Midlands, because their saddlery business would go "belly-up" if hunting is banned.

There were also people from South Yorkshire pit villages hit by mine closures in the 1980s.

He added: "We ask for tolerance, we demand that tolerance is given us in our lives. We are saying we are not a colony. We are an equal and voluble part of this nation.

"We want and demand that anything that happens to the countryside is for its people, not done to its people. We demand that Parliament seeks and is obliged to achieve the consent of rural people."

He said each one of the hundreds of thousands of marchers would sign a small card to say they were on the march and the card would include the Countryside Alliance's five key demands of the Government.

The "credo" demands that the Government defends and safeguards the rural way of life, respects its values, ensures any laws have consent of rural people and addresses the real problems the countryside is facing.

Mr Burge added: "This is about the countryside reclaiming the countryside for its own people. It's about people not about the countryside animals, not its landscape, but the individuals who have shaped the countryside, keep it whole and who will shape it in the future.

"The message is, particularly after talking to Vinnie Jones, it's about ordinary people who want to lead respectful lives."

He added: "It's about all of us in the countryside. It's about that rich diversity we have. We are going to fight for a common cause."