British Government faces rural revolt over mass slaughter plan

The British Government is facing further calls to abandon plans for a mass slaughter of healthy animals which may have come into contact with foot-and-mouth disease.

The RSPCA is urging the Ministry of Agriculture not to slaughter animals which have no proven link to foot-and-mouth disease, describing the move as "a step to far".

Lobby group Farmers For Action (FFA) says it is launching a legal battle in a bid to stop the cull.

"This is all-out war - and I don't use those words lightly," said spokesman David Handley, who was also a leader of last year's fuel protests.

"If this is the way they want to handle it I'm afraid they've got a fight on their hands."

One of the group's regional co-ordinators, Andrew Spence, said farmers would barricade themselves in their farms rather than see healthy animals killed. The NFU denied reports that it would support that action.

And police in Penrith, Cumbria, among the worst-hit areas, revealed they had confiscated firearms from a farmer who allegedly threatened foot-and-mouth officials who came to cull his livestock.

Agriculture Minister Nick Brown said on Friday the planned mass cull of healthy animals would not begin until the scientific thinking behind the controversial measure had been explained to concerned farmers.

The minister apologised to farmers for confusion over his announcement on Thursday over three kilometre-wide cull zones around centres of infection.

The mass slaughters will condemn up to 300,000 pigs and sheep in Cumbria, and Dumfries and Galloway, to an automatic death sentence, whether infected or healthy, Mr Scudamore said.