British Minister of the Environment, Mr. John Gummer, (former Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries) is among those who wish to deny Norway access to the European Union because of whaling. He is largely responsible for the British government's position on the whaling issue.

John Gummer says:
"The situation is now that certain whale stocks are reaching levels where it will be difficult to say that a controlled and highly limited catch of whales would harm the stock."
(Gummer in a letter to Parliament, March 1991)...

"I am extremely suspicious of those who tell us that there are enough minke whales to take... Whales are threatened as a species".
(Gummer, the Parliamentary debate, May 17, 1993.)

"Field sport (i.e. fox hunting) is a basic human freedom."
(John Gummer at a 1990 meeting of the Field Sport Society),(For the reader's information, in British fox hunting, the dogs kill the fox.)

"There is no humane way of killing a whale."
(Gummer, press conference in Glasgow, May 1993)

"The sooner the House passes the Maastricht Bill... the better for us and for the whales."
(Gummer, the Parliamentary debate, May 17, 1993.)

"I promise to do my best to ensure that Iceland does not leave the International Whaling Commission... I want to keep Iceland within the fold of civilized nations."
(Gummer at a parliamentary debate on June 3, 1991)

Comments by the British press
On Gummer's speech about whales in Parliament a few days before the announced cabinet changes where Gummer was in danger of losing his seat.

"Delivering a statement about whaling, John Gummer made an impastoed appeal for the protection from cruel slaughter of himself."
(The Guardian, "Moby John gets that sinking feeling", May 18, 1993)

"...if we were to launch this small ministerial cetacean into the North Sea, in wet suit and goggles, his love songs might attract the sympathetic interest of the larger sort of lady whale."
(The Times. "Show you care: Save the Gummer", May 18, 1993)

"I get somewhat angry at the reaction of Norway," Gummer announced with a purse of this lips and a click of knitting needles... The Norwegians don't think like that with us and the foxes do they?"
(The Independent, "Gummer has a whale of a time". May 18, 1993

"When he spoke of his worries for the little minke whale MP's almost wept. Where can you get a Save - the - Gummer sticker? We must all have them for our cars?"
(The Times, May 18, 1993.

Some comments from Norway
"The whaling issue provides the rich, major polluters with a cheap way of buying a green alibi."
Heidi Sørensen. leader of the Norwegian environmentalist organisation Nature & Youth, 1993.

"John Gummer is the biggest shitbag I have ever met."
Comment by the Norwegian Minister of the Environment, Thorbjørn Berntsen, after Gummer had refused to discuss the acid rain problem on the grounds of the Norwegian minke whale harvest.