Queen Camilla giving up real fur? This is what leadership is all about

When I started campaigning for animal rights as a teenager in the 1980s, I was really inspired by an iconic poster created by anti-fur campaigners. Alongside an image of a smartly dressed woman holding a bloody fur coat was a corker of a slogan: “It takes up to 40 dumb animals to make a fur coat. But only one to wear it.”

Of all the animal rights issues I campaigned on, fur seemed the most straightforward. Why should animals be caged and killed, just to produce a weird coat? If you’d told me back then that we’d still be discussing the issue four decades on, I wouldn’t have believed you. Surely this vain cruelty would have been eradicated long before 2024?

But although fur farms were banned in the UK in 2000, imported fur from various species, including fox, rabbit, mink, coyote, raccoon dog and chinchilla, is still allowed.

Speaking on the Downing Street steps in 2019, Boris Johnson promised that he would “promote the welfare of animals” as a cause “so close to the hearts of the British people”. But all of the nine animal welfare pledges he put in the Tory manifesto, including banning imports of fur, were later dropped.

A lot of imported fur comes from China, taken from animals, who spend their whole lives in small wire cages, gnawing away at their own limbs and hurling themselves against the cage bars. When their time comes, they are grabbed from their cages and bludgeoned or strangled to death. Researchers found that many animals were still alive as they were being skinned.

Undercover investigations into farms in the US found that animals bred for their fur also spend their entire miserable lives in cages before being slaughtered, often by gassing, neck-breaking, or electrocution of the genitals.

The teenage me wouldn’t have believed all this was still going on, and the me that went to bed last night wouldn’t have believed I would be writing an article praising a member of the royal family this morning. But after Queen Camilla promised that she would not buy any new fur products, I have to applaud her.

I’m opposed to the monarchy for many reasons, including the long history of some royals shooting animals. But I admire Camilla for her move because this is what leadership should be all about – using your privilege to set a moral example.

And to be fair, it’s not the first time she and Charles have done that. Last year, the “Coronation roll” was produced on paper rather than parchment made from animal skin and the oil used for anointing the King was animal-free for the first time. Royal residences no longer serve foie gras.

Look, there’s a hell of a long way to go. I don’t buy into the idea that animal cruelty is sometimes wrong and sometimes okay. A chicken or a pig no more deserves to be caged and killed than a mink or a duck. So I hope that one day a royal stands up to declare that all animal abuse is wrong and it’s time for us all to prove we really do oppose cruelty to animals by going vegan. But realistically, it will take lots of steps to arrive at such a beautiful day.

This was an important step. In his slightly sniffy response to Camilla’s announcement, Mark Oaten, chief executive officer of the International Fur Federation, showed all the self-awareness of a dead mink when he said that “freedom of choice is the key issue”.

What about the freedom of animals to choose a full, happy and free life? In the future, the fur industry will be seen as a relic of a barbaric past. In the meantime, thank you, Camilla, for standing up for animals.