Threats of defiance over hunt ban

A campaign of civil disobedience was today threatened by fox-hunters as a ban on the sport was finally steam-rollered onto the statute books.

Protesters planned to disrupt today's visit by French president Jacques Chirac by picketing talks in London and a banquet at Windsor Castle.

But leaders hinted at more direct action in the run up to the general election, including tactics such as dumping dead foxhounds at political events. John Jackson, leader of the Countryside Alliance, warned: "True civil disobedience is now on the horizon."

Anger boiled over as the Commons prepared to invoke the little-used Parliament Act to shortcut a ban into law by next February. Commons speaker Michael Martin was expected to announce the move today, effectively over-ruling objections by the House of Lords. Peers last night voted by two to one against outlawing the sport.

Mr Jackson predicted disruptive protests would escalate next year if legal challenges to the ban failed. He said: "Breaking the law is wrong, but civil rights leaders have said for years that if there is an unfair law it is proper for the individual to draw attention to its unfairness by breaking it."

Protesters dumped animal carcasses at the Labour conference in September and have used farm vehicles to cause traffic chaos. With hundreds of foxhounds potentially being put down, some groups have threatened to dump their bodies outside Downing Street. Some farmers around Salisbury Plain, the Army training ground, have banned the MoD from their land; while some hunts are talking about carrying on in defiance of the law.

The Government is so concerned that stunts could overshadow the election, expected in May, that ministers may introduce a short Bill in the Queen's Speech postponing the ban until July 2006.

A row is raging in Westminster over the use of the Parliament Act for only the fourth time since the Second World War. It can be invoked if the Lords blocks a Commons Bill twice in a row.

Environment Minister Lord Whitty appealed in vain before last night's vote for peers to back down and end the seven-year deadlock. "However justifiable your position ... your lordships have thrown out the baby with the bathwater and we are in a directly confrontational situation," he said.

But Labour peer Lady Mallalieu, the Countryside Alliance president, branded the Bill "rank bad" and said: "Its foundations are naked prejudice and wilful ignorance."

The first of several legal challenges will reach the courts tomorrow when the Alliance argues the 1949 Parliament Act cannot be used.