Our approach to mass movement building
Our goal is to build a movement with the power to end the farming of animals and all other forms of animal exploitation. This does not currently exist in the UK. To achieve this, we must scale a mass movement of everyday animal lovers, engaging both vegans and, crucially, non-vegans.
1. Expanding the Movement Through Popular Gateway Issues
Single-issue campaigns (e.g. testing on dogs, killing badgers, hunting, importing ‘fur’, racing dogs) are highly popular and politically winnable, as seen in the Labour Party manifesto.
Most of the UK’s historic wins have been campaigns related to these types of single-issues, e.g. banning: testing on animals for cosmetics (1998); the use of great apes in research (1998); fur farming (2000); hunting with dogs (2004), wild animals in circuses (2020); and live exports (2024).
These "low-hanging fruit" issues bring in large numbers of people who care about other animals but are not yet engaged in activism or veganism. They act as a recruitment funnel between the public and the movement.
Short-term wins create momentum, which accelerates movement-building, attracts more people, and lays the foundation for bigger victories over time.
2. Converting Passive Supporters to Activists, Vegans and Farmed Animal Advocates
Campaigns like ending testing on dogs and cats are a powerful entry point—57% of UK households have a cat, dog, or both, yet only 2-3% of people are vegan. With broad public support, these campaigns offer a major opportunity to turn passive supporters into active participants.
By bringing non-vegans into activism and immersing them in a vegan community, they naturally begin to connect the dots between all forms of animal exploitation, transitioning into farmed animal advocacy and veganism—a pattern seen in the UK grassroots movement that existed previously. A movement culture where veganism is the norm means that new activists will be immersed in conversations, trainings, relationships, and networks (as explored in Damon Centola’s Change) that shift their perspective on all animal issues, including diet.
The current Camp Beagle petition gathered over 200,000 signatures in just one week, yet our movement lacks 200,000 active members—proving huge untapped potential. Without infrastructure, most of these people will be lost to our movement. With our networks in place, groups like Camp Beagle can signpost supporters to their local groups, embedding them in a vegan culture and expanding the recruitment pipeline for both veganism and activism.
Providing people with an accessible entry point via a single-issue campaign they already connect with, means more people can join the movement, and grow as they learn through immersion and training at their own pace. This will increase the number of vegans and activists over time.
By growing a mass movement through popular single-issue campaigns, we can also re-politicise veganism as a social justice issue, a boycott against cruelty and a form of empowerment, not just a personal choice.
3. Building Local Group Infrastructure for Long-Term Impact
Local campaigns (e.g. against zoos, oceanariums, fox hunts, fur shops etc.) train and empower grassroots groups, helping them develop strategic capacity for future farmed animal campaigns and other campaigns.
Groups gain confidence by winning local, relevant battles, making them stronger and more effective when tackling bigger systemic issues like farming animals.
4. Strengthening National Farmed Animal Campaigns with Grassroots Power
Current national NGO-led campaigns lack grassroots mobilisation—most don’t provide free or easily accessible materials for local groups, limiting their reach.
A strong grassroots network would allow national campaigns to reach millions, ensuring farmed animal issues gain mass traction.
A coordinated grassroots-NGO synergy, as attempted by the For Charlie campaign, would maximise the impact of national farmed animal campaigns.The reason this hasn't worked with the For Charlie campaign, is due to the lack of a grassroots network.
5. Mobilising in Response to Trigger Events
The public regularly expresses outrage over specific animal injustices (e.g. Beau the calf, the Tamworth Two, or the humpback whale caught in a Scottish salmon farm).
Currently, the movement lacks the capacity and infrastructure to respond at scale and turn these moments into mass mobilisations and take hold of the narrative.
A well-connected grassroots network would allow us to rapidly mobilise protests, petitions and pressure campaigns, shifting public consciousness and policy.
6. Creating a Self-Sustaining, Expanding Movement
Historically, mass mobilisations in the UK animal rights movement were driven by vivisection and then live exports, but momentum was not sustained.
By building a decentralised local group network that works across diverse issues, we are more likely to have continued growth rather than decline.
Examples like Dorset Animal Action (DAA) show how local groups increase all forms of activism, including diet change. Since starting DAA, attendance at slaughterhouse vigils has increased, as have the Plant-Based Treaty and WTF teams - all diet change initiatives. DAA has also increased collaboration between Plant Based Treaty and Plant Based Councils, and Southampton Animal Action (SAA) is launching a campaign to end the live export of farmed animals from the Isle of Wight which would end most animal agriculture on the island.
This suggests that a thriving grassroots movement will naturally increase farmed animal advocacy and vegan activism.
A Transformative Approach
While we are not a single-issue organisation, our strategy is designed to grow and strengthen the movement in ways that will directly accelerate diet change and campaigns to end the farming of animals, along with all other forms of animal exploitation.
Our approach is to:
build power from the ground up—expanding the activist base through engaging, winnable campaigns
create cultural shifts—activating non-vegans and immersing them in a movement where veganism is the norm
enable national farmed animal campaigns to scale effectively—bridging the gap between NGOs and grassroots activism, and
be prepared for moments of opportunity—ensuring public outrage translates into mass mobilisation and lasting change.
We are investing in the infrastructure that will make mass dietary change, ending the farming of animals and animal freedom inevitable in the UK.
