Angry Angler Calls for Boycott of National High Street Store Chain

A Lancashire angler is asking UK fishermen and their families to boycott a major national high street store chain because the chain appears to be endorsing PETA, the animal rights group which has attacked angling.

In calling for a boycott there is a risk of upsetting one of the richest men in Britain, the billionaire retail entrepreneur Sir Phillip Green, owner of the Arcadia store group. The call for a boycott relates to Sir Phillip's flagship Topshop store in London's Oxford Street, where the company's endorsement of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA ) was spotted on an animal rights website.

The Arcadia group owns Bhs, Burton,Topman, Miss Selfridge, Wallis, Topshop, Dorothy Perkins, Evans and Outfit. David Stocker is asking anglers and their families not to shop at any of these stores if they can help it, until Sir Phillip severs his company's link with PETA, an organisation which campaigns for 'total animal liberation'. The PETA agenda would lead to the end of angling, as well as stopping meat eating, pet keeping, horse and greyhound racing, the animal testing of human medicines, zoos, circuses, shooting, and so on.

Comments David Stocker, "The animal rights group PETA made enemies of the UK's angling community when they attacked our sport, something we anglers have found hard to forget and forgive. I used to have nothing but admiration for Sir Phillip's entrepreneurial skills. But I saw red when I saw animal rights activists crowing about Topshop's endorsement of PETA on the 'Keep on Fighting'* animal rights website. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised that a man like Sir Phillip will have many wealthy friends who will own fur coats, own racehorses, enjoy horseracing and can afford to eat things like foie gras, all things that PETA hate. I can't believe that his social world is one where these things are condemned and vilified. So why is he inflicting PETA's warped views on us ordinary people? But it gets worse; is Sir Phillip aware that in the USA PETA launched a campaign that likened Holocaust victims to battery chickens*? That upset a lot of Jewish people."

"I'm sure, too, that PETA are no friends to Kosher slaughter methods. To be honest, I suspect the whole affair has been an oversight and his people have been gulled into going along with PETA, but I understand that Sir Phillip prides himself in knowing what goes on in all his stores. When decent people get involved with PETA, they are giving them credibility which helps legitimise the whole of their agenda. PETA promotes a central idea that is every bit as dangerous as any radical or extreme opinion, namely that an animal's life is worth the same as that of a human. This concept has inspired people to criminality and violence in the UK and elsewhere. Someone has to stand up and say, "Enough is enough". In this respect I've been inspired by Laurie Pyecroft, the teenager who stood up to animal rights extremists at Oxford University by creating the Pro-Test movement. So I am asking anglers and others in the UK who want to enjoy the freedom to eat meat, keep pets, enjoy a flutter on the races, go fishing or whatever, to try and boycott stores in the Arcadia group."

*Link to 'Keep on Fighting' animal rights website
http://www.keeponfighting.net/article.php?story=20061115134000173

*Link to report of PETA's 'Holocaust on a Plate' campaign http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Northeast/02/28/peta.holocaust/

* General expose of PETA
http://www.activistcash.com/organization_overview.cfm/oid/21