Principles, according to the parliamentary cynics are made to be broken. But the cause of the animal-export protesters is wholly untarnished. No cow ever put VAT on fuel or took a bribe to ask a question in parliament. No sheep ever rewrote its party's statement of principle in a bid to buy a few cheap votes. Livestock protests stand out against the tired arguments of traditional politics, but this is only because they are not about people at all - which exemplifies the problem with the Shoreham demonstrations.
Animals are the ideal object of sympathy for people who have given up on the human race.
Conservatives have always been into animal welfare as a kind of calculated snub to other people. Like those batty old ladies who leave all their money to Battersea dogs home just to spite their relatives, the cause of animal welfare is dear to the hearts of misanthropists everywhere. Animal welfare has often been a good way for reactionaries to sound off about the cruel way that foreigners treat their animals. Now the French are being pilloried because they like veal. In the past, far-right parties infiltrated animal rights groups as a platform for xenophobic attacks on Jews and Muslims for the 'ritual slaughter' of kosher and halal meat.