I don’t want to state the bleeding obvious, but Britain is an island and our coastal communities have been fishing for millennia. Indeed, the sea and fishing are part of our DNA.
It was natural, therefore, that one of the causes front and centre of the Brexit campaign was fisheries. We and, more importantly, our fishing industry were told leaving the bloc would mean taking back our fishing stocks from the European Union.
Today though, our fishermen have every right to feel disappointed and deceived, because, when we did leave the EU, we didn’t take our fishing stocks back or reinvigorate our fishing industry as had been promised.
Instead, we agreed to EU boats being allowed to continue fishing our waters and, instead of reasserting our rights over our own waters, we agreed to a phased reduction in EU catches, until 2026.
By 2026, the fishing agreement states, the EU's overall share of the catch in UK waters would be reduced by 25 per cent, with that being added to the catch permitted for our own industry.
To be fair, this phasing of implementation was based on a) the need to enable the EU’s fishing industry to adapt and b) the continued need that British fishing boats had to sell their catches in EU ports.
Henry Bolton was the leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) between September 2017 and February 2018
GB NEWS
Enter stage left a Labour government, one that wants to reopen the Trade and Cooperation Agreement with the EU.
The EU has consistently expressed significant disinterest in doing this but is now suggesting, albeit only informally at the moment, that they’ll only talk about the TCA if Kier Starmer agrees to discuss renegotiation of the fishing agreement, to the benefit of the EU and the disadvantage of the British fishing industry.
Without doubt, any further compromise on fishing would be devastating for the British industry, possibly fatal.
It could well be the final nail in the coffin for many coastal fishing businesses. The under 10 metre fleet, which constitutes 79 per cent of the overall fleet, is particularly vulnerable.
Already, fishermen are laying off crew and putting their boats up for sale, because the restrictions on fishing quotas are so tight and the UK's self-imposed regulations, since Brexit, are so costly, that their business are no longer viable.
Financially, it’s true that the industry only contributes around £1billion to the UK economy, so you may argue that it’s not important and can be sacrificed for the greater good.
I vehemently disagree.
Fishing may not contribute a huge amount to the economy, but it also employs around 11,000 people and, importantly, that revenue and those jobs are concentrated in some of our most deprived areas.
In some communities, such as Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft, it is a significant contributor to the local economy. In towns such as Looe, Whitstable and Folkestone it also brings in tourism.
Furthermore, fishing is symbolic. We are an island nation, with a long and proud maritime tradition.
Fishing and the sea are in our blood and fishing is very much a part of our island story. You cannot place a price in such things. So, economically, culturally and socially fishing matters. It matters a great deal.
A government that was truly putting the interests of the United Kingdom and the British people first would be saying that we need to talk about taking back more than 25 per cent of our stocks.
A government that cared about Britain’s history, heritage, national character and coastal communities would certainly not be considering giving away our fishing industry’s one remaining lifeline.
The British fishing fleet was sold a pup. They were misled by the Leave campaign and then sold out by the Conservative government.
They have been deceived, and now they are at risk of being holed below the waterline by a Labour government seemingly hell bent on cosying up to Brussels again.
I hope that the Prime Minister realises that some things are simply not up for negotiation. Destroy the fishing industry and you destroy a part of the British people.
However, there’s an even more serious issue looming. One of the reasons that the government would be considering this sell-out of our fishing industry would be to oil the wheels of an agreement with the EU on foreign policy collaboration.
Now that may seem a reasonable aspiration in the minds of some reading this – why not collaborate?
But I was a Lead Planner for the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy in Brussels for three years, so I can say with direct authority that when you're dealing with the European Union there is no such thing as collaboration on foreign policy.
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The only option available, beyond the level of cooperation that exists today – and I’m a passionate advocate of cooperation - would be a commitment, by us, to coordinate our foreign policy with that of the 27 member states, within the frameworks of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy.
To be clear, that would mean not simply collaboration, but the subordination of our foreign policy and our defence policy, including procurement, deployments, operations and training, to the collective position of the European Commission and the member states.
If we participate in the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy, our independence on the global stage, and our national security, would be hamstrung and fundamentally compromised.
In the meantime, while these crucial issues should be intensely scrutinised, the Conservative Party is haggling over leadership issues and the future direction of the party, and Reform UK has internal problems and a leader who still seems to think he can divide his attention between Clacton, Westminster and Washington DC.
Effective opposition is seriously lacking and, wherever you are on these issues or on the political spectrum, you’ll probably agree with me that allowing the executive to govern unchallenged can lead to some very bad decision-making.
