Renewed calls for ban on fur imports ahead of any EU reset

Humane World for Animals UK , the Fur Free Britain coalition, 50 MPs, veterinary experts and celebrities are strengthening calls on the UK government to ban imports of fur.

This comes as new investigative footage shows mink in Chinese fur farms trembling in tiny wire cages before being brutally killed for fur that could end up sold in the UK. And there are concerns that a reset of the UK-EU relationship could make banning fur imports more difficult.

Despite banning fur farming in 2003, the UK continues to import millions of pounds worth of fur from overseas. It has imported more than £60m worth from China in the last decade (2016-2025 inclusive), making China the single biggest source of UK fur imports.

Humane World for Animals campaigners say the UK government is complicit in cruelty for as long as it keeps allowing fur from China and other countries to enter the UK market.

The cruelty of fur farming

The investigation at five farms in Qinhuangdao and Dandong, northern China, reveals thousands of mink, foxes and raccoon dogs kept in barren wire cages measuring one square metre or less.

Many of the animals exhibit signs of psychological distress, such as repetitive head bobbing and pacing, resulting from the lack of stimulation and chronic stress.

Evidence shows the lifeless bodies of mink and raccoon dogs littering the ground below the cages, and pools of blood around the minks’ heads. A mink is seen writhing on the floor where the animal was thrown by a farm worker after being bludgeoned.

In March 2026, the UK government’s animal welfare committee published a damning report condemning the animal suffering involved in the UK fur trade. MPs and campaigners are increasingly concerned that the UK’s sovereign right to ban fur imports could be sacrificed by the government.

In the letter, MPs and Peers state:

We are concerned by recent media reports indicating that the EU reset could compromise the UK government’s ability to ban fur imports and sales.

A handful of EU countries, including Finland and Greece, continue to permit cruel fur farming.

Ruth Jones, MP for Newport West and Islwyn, says:

It’s sickening to think that fur from these animals tormented in tiny cages and brutally killed could end up traded in the UK. We can’t call ourselves a ‘nation of animal lovers’ if we ban cruelty here but then keep shipping it in from overseas.

Reports that the UK-EU reset might remove the UK’s freedom to ban imports of fur are extremely concerning. Labour backed a Fur Free Britain when we were in opposition, and we must not now trade that promise away.

Claire Bass, senior director of campaigns and public affairs at Humane World for Animals UK, says:

Millions of animals are suffering on farms in countries including China, Finland and Greece so their fur can be shipped to the UK. The global fur trade causes immense animal suffering and virologists are ringing the alarm bell that it could be the source of another pandemic.

Our government must not sign any deals that keep the UK complicit in this cruel, reckless and unnecessary trade.

Former Defra minister Zac Goldsmith says:

One of the advantages of Brexit was that we could boost animal welfare in ways that were not previously possible. At the moment we don’t allow fur farming in the UK, but we do allow imports, which means we have simply exported cruelty.

We can now change that, unless the Brexit ‘reset’ closes that option off. It would be a terrible waste of a real and meaningful opportunity to stand up for animal welfare.

Potential for disease

Fur farm outbreaks of COVID-19, Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, and Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Virus (SFTSV) have resulted in millions of animals dying or being killed. SFTSV is an emerging infectious disease that affects animals and humans, with symptoms including fever, respiratory and gastrointestinal issues and even death.

Virologists have voiced serious concerns about the fur industry’s potential to drive disease spread to humans and even trigger the next pandemic. A 2024 Nature paper focused on Chinese fur farms identified 39 viruses as high-risk for spillover potential, including 13 potentially high-risk novel viruses. It concluded that fur farming represents:

an important transmission hub for viral zoonoses.

Outbreaks of infectious SFTVS disease on six fox farms in China resulted in “tens to hundreds” of deaths per farm and virologists have warned that:

close contact between farmed foxes and farmers could facilitate the viral spillover from foxes to humans.

Veterinarian professor Alastair Macmillan, formerly head of animal health and welfare evidence base core team at Defra,  says:

As a veterinary microbiologist, I am deeply concerned by the clear potential for disease transmission when highly stressed animals are confined in close proximity, while other species -including geese, ducks, and cats – roam between the cages.

We already know that fur farms can act as incubators for zoonotic diseases, and this footage perfectly illustrates that risk.

None of the animals on these fur farms is permitted a life that even remotely satisfies their natural behavioural instincts. These are wild, intelligent animals that belong in complex, stimulating environments. Instead, they are locked in barren wire cages, their lives reduced to a meaningless, repetitive loop of eating, sleeping, and wasting away, until the day they are finally killed and skinned.

Fur is a declining trade that needs stamping out

China’s fur trade has been in steep decline with a 90% reduction in animals kept and killed from 87 million animals in 2014 to 8 million in 2025, according to the China Leather Association.

The decline of the trade in China mirrors a similar downward trend worldwide. Globally there has been an 86% decline in the number of animals kept and killed for fur in the last decade, from 140 million in 2024 to 20.5 million in 2025.

You can read the letter from the MPs and Peers here.

Featured image via Humane World for Animals