UK Parliament Debates Suspending Free Trade Agreement with the Faroe Islands over Dolphin Slaughter

     On the night of September 12th, 2021, 1,428 Atlantic white-sided dolphins were killed in an unauthorized hunt in the Faroe Islands. On that bloody Sunday, the entire pod, including mothers and calves, were driven to the shore with boats, some of the creatures displaying evidence of having their flukes shredded by the propellers, before all the animals had their spines severed with a lance and their heads taken off with sharp knives. It is the cruelest dolphin slaughter on the planet: this particular hunt dragged on for well over six hours, some creatures beached in shallow waters that grew increasingly red with the blood of their family members, 1,428 cries of agony that were silenced. This hunt was the largest single recorded slaughter of whales or dolphins in the history of humanity, the largest dolphin hunt in the Faroe Islands, and the only one that recorded 1,000 or more deaths in the past 80 years. The murder brought the total number of dolphins killed in 2021 to over 2,200, the highest number in 30 years. Rightfully, the world was outraged, and rightfully, Sea Shepherd activists who have been fighting this cruel hunt for nearly 40 years doubled down on their efforts with the launch of the Stop the Grind Coalition and their 14th campaign in the Faroe Islands. 

     A central part of this campaign is to exert pressure on the UK, the archipelago's geographic neighbor and closest major European partner when Denmark is excluded. This pressure campaign, it appears, has been successful. In the immediate aftermath of the hunt, dozens of prominent politicians in the UK, especially those in Jersey, called on Parliament to take action against this atrocity and pledged to do what they could on their own to punish the islands for this crime against nature. The government of the UK said it "strongly condemned" the hunt, but not much else happened. Of particular note is the pending free trade agreement between the UK and the Faroe Islands, one that would bring in £100 million pounds of income to the latter, representing roughly 20 percent of its global seafood trade and two to three percent of its GDP (farmed salmon and tourism combined representing virtually the entirety of the Faroese economy). 

     Activists with Sea Shepherd and the Stop the Grind Coalition, particularly an activist by the name of Dominic Dyer, took action with an official UK government petition to suspend the FTA until the slaughter of dolphins in the Faroe Islands is ended. If these petitions garner 10,000 signatures, the government responds; 100,000 signatures necessitates a debate in Parliament. Today, one week ahead of the six-month deadline, the necessary number of signatures has been achieved, and the petition, which received celebrity backing, is on track to get to 110,000 or more before the week is up. A date has not yet been set for debate, and whether that debate will result in the FTA being suspended is doubtful. However, the fact that this is even being considered in the Parliament of the UK should send a very strong message to the Faroe Islands: the world will not tolerate violent cruelty. The Faroese prime minister promised to "review" the dolphin hunt: if that "review" turns out to be an empty promise, his people may pay dear financial costs.