THE foxhunting community declared war on Tony Blair last night as the countryside tradition enjoyed by monarchs and peoples of all classes for more than 300 years was made a crime.

The Prime Minister faced the prospect of a bitter general election campaign scarred by rural demonstrations and civil disobedience after Parliament decided that the pursuit should be outlawed in February, three months from today.

At 9.02pm last night Michael Martin, the Speaker of the House of Commons, announced that the Hunting Bill had met all the provisions of the Parliament Act and would become law. To a mixture of cheers and cries of “shame”, he said the Bill was being sent to the Lords for Royal Assent.

Shortly afterwards the announcement that the Act was now law was made in the Lords with the traditional Norman words “La Reyne le Veult”. Foxhunting — along with deerhunting and harecoursing with dogs — will now be banned.

Hunts all over Britain were suddenly confronted with swift and painful decisions about what to do with their hounds and horses and whether to defy the law.

Huntsmen first started breeding hounds for foxhunting in the early 1660s. Today at least half a million people are either directly or indirectly involved in the 350 hunts across the country. At least 1,000 are employed directly by hunts and the industry is worth £14.9 million a year. Up to 8,000 people could lose their jobs and up to 25,000 hounds may be put down.

Mr Blair was given an early taste of the turmoil ahead when more than 1,000 furious pro-hunt campaigners flocked to Windsor Castle to barrack him as he arrived for a state banquet in honour of President Chirac of France.

The angry crowd blasted hunting horns, chanted “No ban, no ban” and waved banners as they waited for the Prime Minister and other officials. They assembled as the last rites for the ancient pursuit were read in both Houses of Parliament.

After an astonishing day in the Commons, when Labour MPs accused ministers of going behind their backs to stitch together a compromise, it was the Lords who finally determined that the ban should come into force almost immediately.

That was the final defeat for the Prime Minister who, having failed to push through his compromise of licensed hunting, was desperate to give the hunting community longer to adjust to the decision of Parliament.

Peers rejected an attempt by the Government to delay the implementation of the Bill until July 2006. MPs had voted for the delay but peers threw it out in their final vote last night. They argued that it was dreamt up by the Government purely to prevent foxhunting being an issue at the general election, expected in May, and they should not go along with it.

The view of pro-hunting peers was that Labour MPs should face the consequences of their decision. But last night government lawyers were discussing whether ways could be found of delaying implementation to avoid a string of prosecutions before the election.

The pro-hunting campaign, led by the Countryside Alliance, will today take its fight to the courts when a challenge to the 1949 Parliament Act will be lodged, but the prospects of the courts challenging Parliament are thought to be slim.

The second challenge will be for compensation under the Human Rights Act.

Mr Blair said earlier: “I have tried for the best part of two years to find a compromise and a way forward, since there are people who feel passionately on either side of this debate.

“For many people in the country, they would like to have seen a situation in which we dealt with the arguments as to cruelty whilst at the same time understanding the feelings of those who regard this as integral to their way of life. It was not possible to find a compromise in Parliament.”

A spokesman for the Countryside Alliance said that Mr Blair “should not try to shirk his responsibilities by allowing the ban to go through. A total ban is unnecessary, unjust and unenforceable. People have said they are prepared to go to prison rather than stop (hunting).”

John Rolls, the RSPCA’s director of animal welfare, welcomed the ban as “a watershed in the development of a more civilised society”: “This new legislation reflects modern society’s abhorrence of cruelty to wild animals which has, for too long, been veiled in the bloody cloak of tradition and prejudice.”

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