Case Studies of Campaigns

Case Study: Save the Badgers

Bovine tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease of cattle. It presents a serious problem for the cattle industry, causing financial and personal hardship for farmers as infected cattle have to be culled.

The disease is caused by bacteria which can also infect and cause TB in badgers, deer and other mammals. Badgers are thought to pass on the disease to cattle through their urine, faeces or through droplet infection, in the farmyard or in cattle pastures. The government wanted to cull (kill) badgers to prevent the spread of the disease

Many animal welfare charities, including the RSPCA were opposed to the cull, and supported the idea of vaccinations. There was a vaccine available for badgers, but one for cattle hadn’t got through EU trials so wasn’t available to use.

Brian May, the guitarist from the band Queen supported the campaign to stop the cull. He used his celebrity status to raise awareness by speaking out at meetings, going to public protests and launched an e-petition which gained more than 100,000 signatures. He also encouraged people to buy a song “Save the Badger Badger Badger” in order to get it into the charts to make a political statement. It got to number 39 on the UK iTunes chart in September 2013, following publicity on The Last Leg.

The pilot cull did go ahead, and culling has been rolled out. In 2018 a high court judgment ruled that the government’s policy was valid after campaigners had taken the matter to court.

However, there have been some successes. The National Trust has refused to let any culls take place on their land or the farms which they lease out, and have been working with scientists to trial vaccinations.

 

Case Study: HS2

HS2 is a proposed railway which will link London to cities in the north of England. Many people have been against this due to the cost (approximately £56 billion) and environmental reasons (building on green-belt land, hundreds of home will need to be demolished to make way for the proposed route and the destruction of SSSI sites (sites of special scientific interest).

Since its proposal there have been many campaigns to stop it. These have included petitions, protests and even protesters chaining themselves to trees in ancient woodland. These have been national protests as well as individual villages and areas campaigning on how it will affect them. Many people have lobbied their MPs if it affects their area. The NFU (National Farmers Union) lobbied MPs and met with MPs in Parliament to explain how HS2 will affect their farming businesses, to lobby for better compensation and to stop HS2 destroying their farms.

To date HS2 is still due to go ahead, with the first phase being ready in December 2026. However, there have been some success with individual campaigns, for example guaranteed protection of some ancient trees and changes to the route in some places.