Mel Broughton: Unedited

By Claudette Vaughan

Letters from Prison 27/03/2001:“Being a vegan to me means the only logical choice to backing up my views on freeing non-human animals from the living hell we’ve inflicted on them. It is a statement about who I am, a person who rejects the way that we humans have come to see animals as only here to serve our own selfish purpose. It is also on a practical level a way of demonstrating to others that you can lead a happy and healthy life which does not require the suffering and death of animals. When breaking from vegetarianism to veganism nearly 22 years ago I remember thinking that I’d finally broken the chains that tied me to the exploitation of non-human animals.

I am a practical person who has always believed that words of sympathy are not enough when it comes to fighting for change.  Veganism is practical animal liberation, it’s living the ideal and educating those in society who still have their blinkers on.  That exploiting and killing animals is morally wrong and unnecessary. I’m very proud of being a vegan – not in a pious or self-righteous sense but because in a very real way I’m part of the most far-reaching revolution for change in human evolution.” – Mel Broughton.

June, 2005.

Q.  What are the latest developments with the SPEAK campaign Mel?   How is Joan Court’s hunger strike progressing?

A.  Eighty-six  year old Joan Court started a 72 hour hunger strike against the Oxford animal lab yesterday. Joan’s into her second day now.  Yesterday she came down to the regular site demos opposite the half-built lab in Oxford and we had one of the biggest turnouts we’ve had for some time. The support she’s getting on the streets of Oxford is fantastic.  Members of the public are coming up and signing her petition and sponsoring her.  It’s only in the second day and she’s raised over 1000 pounds in cash.  She’s drawn in an enormous amount of awareness.

Last night there was a very large public meeting at the town hall in which two scientists from Oxford were up against two scientists for Europeans for Medical Progress.  This organisation argues against using animals in medical research.  They argue that animals don’t offer a valid model for understanding human disease.   So Joan came down to this very good debate and sat through it.   It concluded by coming out strongly against animal experimentation.  There are a lot of things going on around Joan’s hunger fast. Under the terms of the injunction that the university brought out against us we’re only allowed 50 people to gather at the Oxford site at any one time.  It was a fantastic show of unity from animal rights people who traveled from various places around the countryside to get to Oxford yesterday to see Joan and be part of this demonstration.  Considering her age, she’s still feeling very fit, very strong and very, very determined.  She’s talking to people, has spoke to a lot of press, and there’s been a lot of interest from TV stations and newspapers.  This has been a very positive event.  She’s due to finish tomorrow and then there’ll be another demo in support of her then.

Q. What do you attribute SPEAK’s successes to, first at Cambridge, and now at Oxford?  Is it because of a change in public perception or changes within the vivisection community itself?

A.  There are several reasons.  It’s partly to do with the fact that the animal rights movement and the antivivisection movement has been very tenacious in this vivisection fight.  What I really believe has happened here is the animal rights and protection movement has created a platform where scientists who refuse to use animals have now come up and, at last, are using this platform to inform the public on how useless animal experiments are.  To a large degree I think organisations like SPEAK, SHAC, ALFSG and others have contributed to this change in perception.   Despite all the negative publicity we often get from certain sections of the media, government and the people – despite all of that – what has happened is, the public take this as a very serious issue here.   Personally I believe a set of events have been set in motion which is going to see the end of vivisection in this country.  There’s no doubt about it.  How quickly this happens I’m not entirely sure.  With SPEAK’s successes in Cambridge and now at Oxford,  we are really seeing the beginning of the end of animal research but also the beginning of proper medical research that doesn’t rely on abusing animals or relying on animals as a model for human disease.  This has been shown more and more not to be the way forward.

As campaigners we have been a very,  very big part of starting off this chain of events that’s going to see an end to vivisection in this country. 

Q.  Many activists look towards English animal rights campaigners now because that’s where it’s happening. Overseas there’s been a huge shift back to animal welfarism. In some cases this shift has been initiated from once hard-core animal rights activists.  I wonder what you think about it all?

A.  It’s an interesting point.  In England this central issue of ‘animal rights’ has never gone away because we are too strong and we won’t allow ‘animal rights’ to fade into the background.   Welfarism has a part to play in alleviating pain to some animals on a day to day basis but it can never provide an answer to ending institutionised animal abuse.  Animal welfare can’t abolish animal abuse in labs, in factory farming or in circuses.  It can never do that.  Ultimately animal rights/liberationist  philosophy is about bringing an end to animal welfare.

Q.  That’s right.  The business of animal rights is to put the Industry of animal welfarism out of business.

A.   Yes, that’s something we consciously have to work towards.  The thing in this country is no matter what happens animal rights/liberation won’t ever be compromised.  In part that has to do with realising the animal rights/liberation issue doesn’t exist in a vacuum.  If you look historically at the first people who formed the British Union Against Vivisection (BUAV) or the first fledgling antivivisection organisations,  these people were involved with social change.  The suffragettes, for example, were people working for abolition.  Not welfare solutions but working for abolitionist positions.  I think animal rights campaigners are very much in the same vein and that’s how I know animal rights/liberation philosophy and that campaign structure won’t ever be put out in England.

Q.  If the history of the suffragettes and the history of Black America is anything to go by then the final, and only effective alternative for these liberation movements was illegal direct action. If institutions could not be changed legally, or ethical education could not persuade a critical mass of people to change their minds, or if insufficient support could not be found, is not the only way left to right a moral wrong but by, what Martin Luthur King calls, dramatising the issue? Is this not the only correct position to take?

A.   Absolutely.  If we take a brief look at the history of this country it shows us the suffragette movement, various trade union groups, people fighting for workers rights and land rights have all had to engage in illegal direct action.  This has also been part and parcel of change.  Most changes we now take for granted created a society worth living in and was achieved by people who had to, at certain times in their campaign, use illegal methods to get their message across.

Q.  The more insidious and difficult arguments to penetrate are the one’s from the pro- vivisectors lobby. Take Lord Sainbury for example.  He chairs a panel seeking alternatives to vivisection. We know words and expressions mask the reality of oppression for nonhuman animals but how do we deal with the rhetoric of the abuse industries that forever appears to be working on 'alternatives' but never seems to get there?

A.   It’s a good question.  We’ve seen it at Cambridge university and now at Oxford university.   People like Lord Sainbury and certain government ministers say there is money being poured into finding alternatives to animal research.  At the end of the day these people have a hidden agenda.  They are not interested.   Animal research is supported by two things.  First,  there’s inertia involved especially at Oxford university that has vivisected for a very long time.  Previously there’s been no willingness for them to move away from it.  It’s not because they can’t be shown that overall vivisection is invalid.  This can be shown and was shown last night at the public meeting.  Oxford powers-that-be have allowed themselves to become totally inert over the issue. 

Second, and probably more importantly, is the financial interest in perpetuating vivisection.  There’s a whole industry there plus an animal breeding industry.   People like Lord Sainsbury and unfortunately elements of our government are very much involved in this.  They are defending these financial institutions,  this way of corporate business working, and have put aside ethics, welfare, and even science in the interest of keeping the status quo going.  That is a very powerful thing.   When they talk about funding for alternatives for medical research as Lord Sainsbury said the government were going to invest all this money in this centre called, ‘Alternatives to Animal Research’ what it infact turned out to be was actually only 500,000 pounds.  Now that represents less than 1/30 th of the cost of the proposed Oxford animal lab which has a price tag of 18million.   This tells us everything we need to know.  What they are trying to do is con people.  They’re saying: “Look, we’ll put this money into alternative animal research” and then announces this 500,000 figure.  This isn’t even a drop in the ocean.  What Blair’s ‘New Labour’ government did when they originally came to power was produce a very glossy pamphlet called, ‘New Labour, New Life for Animals’ where they made a number of promises including a Royal Commission into the use of animals and animal experimentation.  They promised to reduce the overall number of animals used in experiments and they were going to bring an end to the use of all primates in research.  There’s been no Royal Commission and animal experimentation has risen under this government.  The UK uses more primates than any other European country.  In other words, this government cynically tapped into the fact that most people are uneasy about vivisection and question it’s validity. They also thought that by dangling this very pathetic carrot, of this very small investment in supposedly ‘alternatives’ to animal research, that people are going to be brought off by it.  But they haven’t. They’ve been shown up for what they are.  Basically there was no serious attempt to address the issues of alternatives to animal experimentation.  At the end of the day,  Lord Sainbury and those others will always bow to interests of the most financial and that is the pharmaceutical industry and organisations like Oxford and Cambridge.  They’re doing it not because they believe that animal experimentation is the future.  They’re doing it because the financial power and pressure of these pro-vivisection organsations is greater.   On our side we are finding increasingly more scientists are saying that animal experimentation is not the future of medical research. 

Q.   Do you think the media are beginning to grasp the mess they failed to embrace for many years regarding vivisection?

A.  There’s no doubt about it,  they are.   At the public meeting we were at in Oxford yesterday you only had to witness the media coverage present from a variety of news stations and outlets.  There was documentary makers there.  It’s quite clear now that they are beginning to realise that this picture they used to paint of us as bunny-huggers or animal lovers versus the wonderful face of science, is no longer the issue.  The ethical and moral issue still stands but the media are beginning to realise more and more this black and white argument that used to be pushed by scientists that animal experimentation works is no longer a representation of what’s truly going on.  This turn-around in attitude from the media has occurred because of the animal rights people push to force them to look at the truth.  The other thing I want to say about it is people in the scientific community say all the time that the reason they won’t come up and be open about their animal experimentation is because they are scared.  They are fearful of the animal rights movement.   Well I’m sorry, but let’s go back 10 years, 20 years, 50 years.  They never have been open and they never would be if it wasn’t for the animal rights people.  It’s not because they are fearful.  It’s because they don’t want people to see them in the bright light of day.  They don’t want people to see exactly what is happening to animals, and how dangerous animal research is when it comes to diseases in human beings.

Q.  It’s been a few years now since you’ve been out of prison but I’ve always wanted to ask you how you spent your first day of freedom and how you spent the first few weeks on the outside.  What did you miss the most?

A.  I missed the very simple things of life.  One of things I did almost immediately was walk for hours on end in one direction.  It may seem strange but in a jail compound you can’t walk for very long without walking into a fence.   When I was in prison my daily exercise routine consisted of walking to the education block or at exercise time I would walk in circles around the prison block.   So to walk in one direction, without interruption, was fantastic.

Q.  Did you miss not having privacy?

A.  In a way you get quite a lot of privacy in jail obviously at night when they lock you in your cell on your own.   On that level it can be very private but then once morning arrives you are with a very small community.  It’s like a microcosm of the outside world.  You are in a community of people where you’re all held in one place and all under the same conditions of living under a strict regime.  Perversely,  on the other side of this,  there is no privacy.  Two very distinctly different things go on within the same small world which is quite a strange thing.  It’s something you just get used to.  I mean you just deal with it.  It’s an interesting phenomenon how we human beings can adapt.   In the end, because you know you are there for a certain amount of time, you make use of what’s around you.  In a way there’s time to better yourself.  I had the chance to read and study like I have never had before.  So far from prison being a negative experience, I came out of it with more knowledge than what I went in with.

Q.  Just for the record. Are there any regrets on anything you’ve done in the past?

A.  No.  None whatsoever.  I’ve been interviewed a great deal over the last year by the media and the prison time always comes up.  I say to them I have absolutely no regrets.  Absolutely none.  I did what I did because I believed it was right.  I will never deviate from that viewpoint.

Q.   Barry Horne died while you were in prison.  What were you doing on that day?

A.  I remember this day very, very clearly.  It was 2 o clock in the afternoon and we usually got locked up at lunchtime between 12 and 2pm.  Then they open it up at 2pm to go onto educational studies or whatever you were doing.  What I remember was the news on the radio came on as my door was being unlocked and I heard just as I was leaving that an animal right’s orchestrator had died while in prison.   I remember it like it was yesterday.  I remember phoning as many people as I could to let them know it was a very, very difficult day and finding out on a radio newscast was not the best way to find out about someone you had known for a long time and spent a lot of time with.

Q.   What do you think Barry would think about today’s advances and breakthroughs in the antivivisection movement?

A.   I’ve had many interesting talks with Barry over the years and he was a very strong-minded person.  I’ve had arguments with him and they were really quite strong arguments and then we’d be able to laugh about it afterwards.  The one thing about him I do know is the thing most important to remember about Barry is, and this applies to all animal rights people, he understood exactly what he was doing and why he was doing it.  He didn’t expect everyone to be like him.  What he always said was this:  “Whatever you do for the animals you have to give it everything.”  There are people in our movement doing exactly that.  Whether that be stalls,  talking in schools,  people being involved in campaigns etc.    Whatever you do give it everything you’ve got.  I think Barry would look at the successes in antivivisection today and respect that people have done exactly that.  I hope that people who knew Barry and those who knew him by only reading about him will take what he said on that level.  Everyone can be justifiably proud in what they do for animals.  Barry would smile at what’s going on now and think his life and what he gave to the Cause of animal liberation has been something that has strengthened our movement.  He’s given a lot to other people.  Not only the one’s who knew him and read about him, but the one’s yet to come in the future who will read about him and will get that same sense of strength from what he’s said.  They’ll take that with them to their campaigns.  In this way his legacy is going to be one that informs the animal rights movement and it will keep us strong as long as it needs to - until this fight is won.

Q.    Your 70 year old mother,  Mrs Broughton,  and other protesters had chemicals thrown at them for peacefully protesting outside Oxford university recently.  She’s on the front-line too.

A.   Yeah she is and so is my dad.  

Q.  How is she because there was some kind of alteration happened?

A.   She’s fine.  She’s been at the site every week now for 9 months.  My dad goes as often as he can as well.  They are both retired.  They are both fantastic people and their support has been amazing.  The one thing I’d like to point out is this: Some people say to me my parents are protesting because their son is so deeply involved in animal rights but no, that isn’t the reason.  They have obviously been exposed to my beliefs but I never forced it onto them.  What they have done is came to their own conclusion about this.  They both have been vegan for over 10 years and they both have looked at the issues and this is a vital important issue and it’s worth fighting for and they have both put themselves up there.  I am incredibly proud of them.

Q.   Last question: The music industry is so skittish about sales it wouldn’t take much to feel the heat of a anti-consumer based campaign against musicians’ who wear fur. Do you like that idea?

A.   I think all of these things have to be explored by the animal rights movement. For me I think people have different strengths, don’t they?  I think we are beginning to see people becoming engaged to do these things.   I think anywhere where we can get the message out and influence people; it’s got to be for the better.  We’ve seen that in all kinds of different ways.  The important thing about it is animal rights thinking isn’t cranky anymore. In this country there are schoolbooks written about animal rights, there are philosophy courses at university now based on the animal rights ethic.  The point is we have arrived.  We’re in mainstream thinking.  We still have a way to go but we are a part of what the future of human society is going to be like and that is going to be recognition of animal rights.