PROTESTERS are threatening to physically stop lorries exporting live animals from Ramsgate port.

Emotions ran high at a public meeting on Saturday where campaigner Ian Driver described the trade as "cruel and barbaric".

Mr Driver, who received a standing ovation for his speech, said: "If a law is a bad law, everyone has a democratic right to make it unworkable.

"We have a right to stop these lorries getting through these gates. If more and more people get down to the port we can physically stop these lorries moving."

During the meeting, it was revealed that since exports from Ramsgate resumed in May, 250 lorries carrying 44,000 animals have been let through.

Mr Driver, who is also a Ramsgate district councillor, said the ex-Soviet ship Joline, which transports the animals to the continent, is charged £750 every time it comes into port, which he said was the lowest berthing fee in any port in the UK.

Describing Ramsgate as a "port of shame", he said: "It has become a bargain basement of brutality. The council should look at raising fees."

Thanet South MP Laura Sandys described the business of animal exporting as being run by "very, very few people with very, very questionable standards".

She said: "There aren't many people in this country who would believe this trade is acceptable or desirable.

"This is a business that is dying. It actually has changed dramatically over the last five to ten years. There is now 50,000 to 60,000 animals being exported every year."

Mrs Sandys said the way to stop the trade was through legislation to ban or limit it, or by working to make it as uneconomic as possible.

Others who spoke at the meeting included Phil Brooke, representing Compassion in World Farming, Green Party MEP Keith Taylor and the RSPCA's director of communications David Bowles.

Last week, members of KAALE (Kent Against Animal Live Exports) and TALE (Thanet Against Live Exports) were in London to protest at the offices of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

Protesters stood outside the Defra offices bearing placards which read "Defra, Dumb and Blind."

An online petition accessible from the Thanet council website has been launched.

The petition calls on the Government to review the 1847 Harbours, Docks and Piers Clauses Act and give port owners the right to refuse live exports.

It has so far collected 7,000 of the 100,000 signatures needed for it to be debated in Parliament.