SPEAK To Field Candidates at General Election

The political party, which calls itself SPEAK Political, will operate separately from the activist group, and will campaign on a broader range of issues to its parent organization, incorporating farming and climate change into its anti-vivisection and hunting policies.

Claire Holliman, co-founder of SPEAK Political, announced the party’s intentions to field a large number of candidates to raise the group’s profile.

“We will be targeting over 100 MPs with anti-animal stances. I hope that for those people from the University who are against the lab the ballot box will be a way to avoid the intimidation and pressure which is being placed on them.”

Dr. Evan Harris, who as MP for Oxford West and Abingdon has been labeled as such an “anti-animal” MP by SPEAK, has nevertheless echoed Holliman’s hopes that the new party might lead to a softening of the more confrontational methods used by SPEAK:

“I welcome the fact that SPEAK are entering the political fray where they will have to try to win the argument by reason and engaging in democracy rather than by their other tactics of harassment and intimidation,”

The announcement came ahead of the news that the leaders of the campaigning arm of SPEAK, Mel Broughton and Robert Cogswell, were last week acquitted by the High Court of charges brought against them by the University. Yet this legal action is cited by the founders of SPEAK Political in their press release as a key motive behind their decision to enter the electoral arena.

“The vivisection industry, working alongside Tony Blair and the Labour Government have been very effective at appropriating the British Judicial system. This undemocratic use of the legal system in order to stifle both public debate and prevent legal protest has placed many other animal rights organisations in similarly difficult positions.”

Despite Holliman’s ambitious plans, the immediate stated aims of the party seems more modest. “In real terms, all we need to do is lose some of these people their seats in order to gain genuine political influence and move animal rights to the top of the political agenda.”

However SPEAK Political have decided against fielding any candidates in Oxford for the City Council elections in May, and are targeting only the General election at this stage.