Reflections on Barry Horne

It is strange how some people are treated after their death.

At a gig last week I heard singer PJ Shepherd lionising animal rights hunger strike Barry Horne. The further from Horne's 2001 death we get, the more his myth appears to build.

I only met Barry Horne once, found him to be an awful bloke and have to say he did more to put me off animal rights than anyone else. Singers like Shepherd appear unaware, or pretend to ignore the fact that when Horne died in 2001 most of the UK animal rights movement was unaware he was even on hunger strike, and of those who knew, many either ignored his fast or tried to get him off it.

Back in the early 1990s, the main day in the animal rights calendar was the annual march through central London for the World Day For Laboratory Animals. I disagreed with vivisection then (as I do now) so went along with a few Class Warriors. In Hyde Park I had the dubious honour of being accosted by Barry Horne himself, who was apoplectic with rage that we were selling Class War.
He demanded to know if Class War supported animal liberation, to which I rather quickly replied that we supported human liberation. Close to hitting me by now, his next line was that we were taking money out of the animal rights movement. Quite how somebody giving me 50p was going to bankrupt the cause was not explained. Given the number of Class War members involved in hunt sabbing at the time, we were probably doing more than most! Horne beat an angry retreat, and I did not see him again until the newspaper pictures of his arrest for various firebombings several years later.

Horne's most famous acts were his hunger strikes after the new Labour government reneged on a promise to bring about an end to vivisection in the UK. This took Horne to the brink of death, although its premise was ridiculed by many - if we all went on hunger strike every time a politician lied, there would not be many people left in the UK! Expecting politicians to do anything other than lie and manipulate is to enter a liberal fantasy world. They do not govern for us, they govern for themselves, and the sooner people wake up to that fact the better.

Prison authorities are well used to dealing with hunger strikes, although relatively few reach the crisis of Horne's third. Traditionally those on hunger strike take only water or tea during their fast. When Horne started taking various fruit based drinks to aid his concentration for studying legal documents, the Home Office spin doctors struck. Used to routinely lying about prisoners, it was not hard to announce to the newspapers that this was not a proper hunger strike at all, the whole thing was a farce, and the authorities must stand firm. Horne was being backed into a corner where unless he actually died, he was going to be made to look ridiculous.

And that basically is what happened. He came off the hunger strike, but with his health and mind damaged. Over the next few years Horne began and ended various hunger strikes, with decreasing support on each occasion. When he died suddenly in 2001, most animal rights activists of my acquaintence did not even know he was on hunger strike. The whole thing had become embarrassing.

A sad way to end anyone's life.

Comments

[Harry]

Barry Bollocks more like. Animal rights? Hitler loved his Alsatian Blondie. Enough said.