Whitehall’s Dartmoor Pony genocide is still going ahead, despite Sir Keir’s promise
Is outgoing PM handing golden PR opportunity to Burnham for a popular first act in No.10, while Sir Keir rides off into the sunset?
The semi-wild ponies on the hills of Dartmoor are now rapidly approaching an ‘extinction level event’, despite the PM’s promise two weeks ago.
Campaigners have issued an urgent plea, sent to us – and by our collaboration with them, GB News. The plea urgently calls on Sir Keir Starmer to take immediate action before he leaves office. They warn him the opportunity to secure protection for the ponies is slipping away. The following report has been prepared in association with our colleagues at the think-tank Brexit Facts4EU and The Campaign for an Independent Britain.
Many readers will be familiar with the term ‘extinction level event’ from the film ‘Deep Impact’ with Elijah Wood and Morgan Freeman. It refers to an entire species being wiped out. In the case of the Hollywood movie it was about the human race and a meteor.
In this case, the species is the iconic Dartmoor pony and the cause is Whitehall. In our reports GB News has described this pony as a living, Bronze Age, ‘National Treasure’. Campaigners say that the ‘living’ part will soon be obsolete.
Here’s Joss Hibbs, Secretary of the Dartmoor Hill Pony Association, a registered charity
“The clock is ticking for Dartmoor’s remaining hill pony herds.
“With some existing grazing contracts coming to an end in the coming weeks, farming families will soon be faced with the devastating prospect of irreversibly removing the vast majority of their pony herds that they have kept for generations.”
Sir Keir’s promise has yet to be fulfilled, with only weeks to go
Two days before the Makerfield by-election, word came out of No.10 that Sir Keir “would not allow” the ‘culling’ of Dartmoor’s ponies. Since then – and since the victory of Andy Burnham and Sir Keir’s subsequent resignation on Monday – there has only been silence.
GB News has been covering this story in collaboration with the Stand for Our Sovereignty and Facts4EU team and with local contacts in the West Country, where the battle is being waged. The lack of any action since the Government’s statement was predicted by Facts4EU two weeks ago, when its Chairman stated:
“Announcing a vote-friendly policy two days before a by-election isn’t the same as implementing it.”
A quick win for Andy Burnham?
One interesting question is whether Sir Keir will want to leave the implementation of such a popular policy to be announced by his inevitable successor, Andy Burnham, as his first act.
Why is the population of Dartmoor ponies under threat?
The future of the Dartmoor pony is threatened by the DEFRA quango ‘Natural England’ and from the general antipathy from Whitehall towards farms and large animals. Whilst the campaigners have never politicised the fight, many others say this arises partly from the entire Net Zero agenda personified by Ed Miliband, widely seen as a contester for the Chancellor role in Andy Burnham’s presumptive new cabinet.
The specific issue is simple. Natural England has decided to include ponies in its total of quotas for animals on Dartmoor, alongside cattle and pigs. As the latter are farmed for commercial purposes whereas ponies are not, commoners will be faced with the inevitable decision. If they are being forced to reduce overall livestock numbers by up to 90% then sadly it will be the ponies who are first to go. The decision was therefore removed from them by the actions of DEFRA’s quango and its new livestock contracts, and this will spend the end for the pony.
Two of Sir Keir’s local Labour MPs speak out
“It’s not good enough for Natural England to say ‘we’re not ordering a cull’, but on the other hand their policies would lead to that outcome. The problem here is the lack of clarity from Natural England.”
– Steve Race MP (for Exeter) and Luke Pollard MP (for Plymouth), 24 Jun 2026
As we previously reported, this decision by Natural England runs counter to the reports and recommendations of official, independent bodies set up for this purpose, which have either stated the Dartmoor pony is essential and must not be threatened, or have yet to publish their findings. Natural England has carried on regardless.
Public petition gallops past 200,000, as campaigners urge the public to save this beautiful animal
Despite Sir Keir’s promise to save this beautiful animal from extinction, GB News has discovered no change has yet been made to Natural England’s new ‘Countryside Stewardship’ contracts.
Since we last reported on this issue, the number of signatories to the public petition which was rapidly organised to prevent what we referred to as the ‘pony genocide’ has galloped forward. Almost 210,000 people have signed and it is hoped this will exceed ¼ million this weekend.
Dartmoor is sparsely populated and the people there need your help.
Those who wish to, can sign the public petition here.
“We didn’t start the fire” – Natural England continued to protest its innocence in Parliament on Tuesday
As we previously reported, Natural England asserts that it values the vital role that ponies play in biodiversity recovery on Dartmoor.
On Tuesday this week, Parliament’s Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee convened to discuss a possible emergency with wildfires. Only last month, an area of more than 700 acres was decimated by a wildfire in another National Park. Ponies on Dartmoor help in preventing these by their natural grazing, keeping down the levels of vegetation – including the invasive long grass Molinia – to feed the fires. The ponies are the only animals to eat Molinia.
The Rt Hon Alistair Carmichael MP, the EFRA Committee’s Chair, quizzed Natural England’s Chief Scientist when she appeared before the Committee on Tuesday.
Prof Sallie Bailey admitted that Molinia is “highly flammable” and that Dartmoor ponies “are less selective than other species grazing on Dartmoor…. they are part of the solution.”
Campaigners say, however, that Natural England’s statements are hard to reconcile with their actions. No change has been made in their approach, despite No.10’s promise that Sir Keir “would not allow” any culling to take place.
The significance of Dartmoor and its iconic pony
The population of these semi-wild ponies has now fallen to less than 1,000. They graze Dartmoor and are cared for by those who are known as ‘commoners’, many of whose families have taken on this responsibility for generations. The Dartmoor Pony itself is known to have been on Dartmoor since the Bronze Ages – at least 3,500 years – and it is now thought from recent bone discoveries that their tenure could be substantially longer than that.
Each year over two million people from across the country visit the beautiful, rugged landscape of rolling hills, gorse, woodland and marsh areas that comprise Dartmoor. The National Park covers an area nearly the size of Greater London, which equates to the size of around 20,000 football pitches.
A major attraction of a holiday there is a glimpse or occasional meeting with the ponies. With numbers of them having fallen as a result of previous policies, this is becoming a rarer experience.
If the government’s quango Natural England gets its way, the Dartmoor Pony will soon become a thing of the past.
Observations
As things stand it appears the Dartmoor Pony could be another victim of the Government’s misfortunes. Sir Keir made a promise and campaigners breathed a sigh of relief. Now it seems this has got lost in all the machinations that have been going on in Westminster.
We hope that extra public pressure from tens of thousands more people signing the petition will persuade Sir Keir that this would be a worthwhile legacy, or that Andy Burnham will see it as the opportunity for a ‘quick win’ with the public in his first week in office.
The only thing that is certain is that the current policies of Natural England cannot be allowed to stand. That would truly be a tragedy.
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