Dr Caroline Lucas, Green MEP and “acknowledged expert on peace issues,” displays her usual clarity of thought:

I am delighted that European foreign ministers have finally approved a ban. It’s a real victory for the global campaign against animal cruelty, and a victory for democracy… By closing the door on fur and other seal products, the EU has taken meaningful action to reduce the scale of commercial seal killing and prove to governments that barbaric annual displays of animal cruelty will no longer be tolerated.

Barbaric. Cruel. No longer tolerated. Got that?

In an aside to this, it’s also worth noting that the Green MEPs were keen to ensure that products from traditional hunts by indigenous peoples in Canada and Greenland will not be covered by the ban.

Ah. Evidently, the barbarism, cruelty and refusal to tolerate depend not on the act itself but on who’s doing it and how traditional and indigenous they are. Traditional, indigenous cruelty is, it seems, something Dr Lucas can live with. In fact, her colleagues are “keen” to do so. Those deemed sufficiently indigenous and traditional will no doubt be immune to the activity’s “de-humanising” effects.

(h/t, sk60)