One of the biggest missed opportunities so far from Brexit is the failure to rebuild a strong and sustainable U.K. fishing industry.
During the UK’s long stay in the EEC/EU the U.K. accepted its large and rich fishery was a common EU resource. Our fleets dwindled. The Spanish came in from far away to fish our waters. Various EU countries gained more quota to fish than U.K. vessels enjoyed. Very large trawlers and industrial trawling pillaged our stocks and led to lower fishing quotas.
The idea of Brexit was to take back control of our fish stocks. Government today could work with the industry. Fish caught in our waters should be landed and processed in the U.K. to rebuild our food industry. Government should help with finance to build a bigger fleet of fishing boats in U.K. yards. Quotas for foreign vessels should be cut back where stocks are under pressure. Ultra large vessels and trawl methods that damage the marine environment should be banned.
Take back control and rebuild our fishing fleets. We should not be importing fish we can easily catch for ourselves.
Labour governments usually like banning things. One good thing to ban would be the over 100 m industrial trawlers which come to damage our fisheries and take too much of our fish.
August 16, 2024
Good morning.
We were robbed when we joined the then EEC. Before we were accepted in the Stupid Club they created the Common Fishing Policy which was designed solely to steal our fishing grounds. Since then they have benefited massively from our fishing stocks and to the detriment of our own industry and State finances.
But trying to reverse what has happened will not make things any better. Much skills and infrastructure has been lost and, do people today see fishing as a worthwhile career choice ?
Perhaps it is better to issue licenses at ever increasing prices and, in more and more limited numbers. Perhaps then when the market increases in profitability we can look to rebuilding once interest from our own people returns.
August 16, 2024
Robbed indeed, first by Heath without even a referendum, then by Wilson’s fraudulent 75 referendum I was for leave but too young to vote – and then again by May, Boris, Sunak… post the Brexit vote. Starmer surely set to be even worse, especially on Free Speech which he is clearly determined to fully exterminate.
Lord Frost today is good on this in the Telegraph – all very depressing indeed.
August 16, 2024
Because we are reliant on France and Belgium for electricity we are being blackmailed for access to our fishing grounds
2Tier Kier will no doubt sign us back up to the EU quotation system in his quest for rejoining
We are in no position to argue and with 2 kitchen Milipede in charge of energy policy things can only get worse.
August 16, 2024
IW,
I also note the releasing of 40,000 prisoners is following extreme left wing Biden administration in US. However, the Senate committee grilling the woman in charge of the programme finds that it costs more to release based on the number that go on to commit further crime because of costs of police, prosecuting costs and judicial costs. It would be cheaper to keep them in!! Also less harm to victims and public!
Therefore careful consideration needs to be given who is to be released, what offences they committed and how many times have they committed offences and how many times previously jailed. They also tried to evaluate how many biological males were placed in women prisons who went on to commit further sexual offences. The senate cited UK stats, where apparently in UK about 18% of prison population convicted of sexual offences were heterosexual against 60% trans people.
August 16, 2024
Our Fishing is linked to energy in the EU sell out agreement. Tory Govt. Deliberately making our country dependent on EU energy to prevent divergence. Sunak increased inter connectors to EU instead of becoming energy independent-a national security issue.
IW points out UK gets about 20% of electric from EU. How does the UK get back its fishing grounds JR?
August 16, 2024
France threatened to cut off Chanel island if fishing licences not issued! Tory govt gave in! A clue to be energy independent!
August 16, 2024
I live in a coastal town where fishing is still seen as a livelihood, albeit diminishing in attractions.The fleet specialises in inshore crab, lobster, cuttlefish and whelk fishing.
The problems the fishermen have are caused by regulations. The worst were the gold-plating of EU regulations under the Tory administration. It let the Environment Agency be led by the Marine Conservation Society and other NGOs, in determining the whereabouts and regulations of new Msrine Conservation Areas. In the limited discussions permitted on their details the fishermen were one “group” but pitched against numerous NGOs, who all counted as distinct “groups” and thus were given more wheighting and effectively outvoted the fishermen at every turn. The fishermen are all for conserving stocks, but they also want to responsibly harvest their prey. The NGOs don’t like it, they would prefer “no-take”, and they tried putting in restrictions aimed at achieving this end sometimes with suspension.
There are other regulations and restrictions that make it more difficult and expensive to work off a beach and with moorings owned by the Crown.
For theoment, the fishermen persevere.
August 16, 2024
Growth again.
The only growth I’m hearing is in cuckooing and protection rackets. From my voluntary role working with distressed people.
The country is finished.
I envy both Sir John’s age and his pension. Closer to death than I am and should remain comfortable in the interim.
August 17, 2024
There had been ‘cod wars’ with the Icelandic in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s the first two 1958-1961 and 1972-73 that had nothing to do with the EEC/EU.
August 16, 2024
All agreed but unfortunately nothing remotely logical will happen now these lunatics are in charge of the asylum. Our fisheries at the time of entry into the EU were apparently the golden key as the then member Europeans could not believe what they were getting when we offered it up. Unbelievable, and they will make it central to any future negotiations.
What a disastrous job this country makes of its external affairs.
August 16, 2024
We have had lunatics in charge of the asylum/No. 10 amd No 11 for all my life, from Harold Wilson through to two tier Kier, Stasi Starmer – just a tiny partial respite during the Thatcher years.
But even Mrs Thatcher failed to cut taxes sufficiently, closed very many Grammar Schools, buried us further into the EU, fell for the climate alarmism scam, went for the political insanity of the poll tax, appointed John Major (who even failed his Maths and most O levels) as Chancellor, allowed the dope to take us into the ERM with the aim of joining the EURO (& against wise advice from JR and Sir Alan Walters), she failed to sort out the dire NHS free at the point of rationing system or the unaffordable state pension system… All this & yet she was the best we have had in 60+ years?
August 16, 2024
Mrs Thatcher was great though at taking on socialism at its core. She was a warrior however she was NOT a businesswoman.
For example, if some of the North Sea Oil had been used to develop the UK as the world’s second Silicon Valley (mainly in the Cambridge / Oxford areas), our economy now would be much stronger / deeper / more diverse. Instead too much went to help the financial and consumer markets (wasted money to a degree plus leading to boom and bust and the banks finally having to be bailed out). And some of the money used to help build up our high tech industry should have gone to investing in the Leeds / Sheffield / Manchester era to help boost the North and finally use some of this money to help the British car industry to give it a fighting chance of helping to create the British Audis / BMWs / Golfs etc of the future.
Lastly, this economy would then have paid for Brexit and we’d be sailing. But aren’t sailing because we didn’t invest North Sea Oil in this kind of economy – not nearly enough at least.
Reply Some of the money was used to establish very successful UDCs in run down areas to rebuild our economy. Docklands was the biggest but there were good ones all round England
August 16, 2024
All you do by rabbiting on about Cambridge and Oxford is demonstrate your ignorance, adding insult to injury
The UK had a number of concentrations of computing development about the islands and Cambridge/Oxford were not the core sites for commercial, computing or telecoms – Thames Valley, Manchester, Stevenage, Letchworth, Harlow, Paignton, Ipswich to name just a few.
The last thing to do is concentrate effort in just a few areas, and especially those two. Consider gaming and CGI are likely to generate far more revenue and those digital activities activities can be anywhere with much of the movie development in the Thames Valley for example.
August 16, 2024
D,
Tommy Flowers at Dollis Hill too. Before Martlesham became the technology centre.
Ed M has a soft spot for Oxbridge and a belief that there can be a renewal in the nation’s moral fibre if the churches and the education system and the various elites all pull together.
August 16, 2024
No, you’re wrong.
When companies move to an area, they move primarily to an area that their employees want to live! (So good schools, nice houses, culture, and so on). This is why Berlin is becoming so popular and why lots of people in business don’t want to move to Frankfurt (they find it boring).
And, secondly, or on par with, somewhere where there is an excellent university that supports the IT industry i.e. Cambridge.
And why be rude?! This is important.
August 16, 2024
In the 2022 the ‘10 Best places for IT’ were Bristol, Manchester, Cambridge, Birmingham, Nottingham, London, Edinburgh, Leeds, Belfast and Newcastle.
‘UK Tech Town Index 2022’.
A excellent university does not guarantee a brilliant support to the IT industry.
Of the 20 LinkedIn top startups of 2023, 13 of which are IT-related, 19 are in London, 1 in Bristol.
linkedin.com 27/09/2023 ‘LinkedIn Top Startups 2023’.
beauhurst.com 11/01/2024 ‘15 Top Tech Startups in the UK, 2023’, 12 are in London, 1 in Cambridge, 1 in Stroud (Netomnia), 1 in Manchester (Freedom Fibre).
Reply Wokingham,Bracknell and Thames Valley attracted the US tec stars of the 1980 s and 1990 s which in turn led to smaller and start up businesses clustering around them. Microsoft, Hewlett Packard etc. This century London has attracted more of the Mag 7
August 17, 2024
I wasn’t being rude, brutally honest maybe.
I was in the computing and then telecommunications R&D industries since the 70’s and not once had contact or dependency on Cambridge U, only once on Oxford U on a software engineering project but their input wasn’t used.
There was far more input and influence from places like Manchester U. But R&D which drove product development occurred in industry not the UK universities.
If the interest is in CPUs maybe Cambridge has a diminishing role but despite the success of ARM where are the UK foundaries? So what real benefit accrues to the UK economy, as opposed to Taiwan and China. Raspberry Pi did support board fabrication in Wales, a Sony plant, but the chips themselves came from Taiwan so where do you think the industrial skills develop and the money goes?
The foundations of widespread desktop 3D printing come from Bath U, fibre optics and LCDs from Harlow labs (UK equivalent of Bell labs), phased array antennas from Paignton, mobile comms from Newbury and Thames Valley.
If there was a critical mass it was the Thames Valley corridor and most certainly not centred on the “Golden Triangle”, but the skills and benefits were always distributed about the country with some involvement from a range of uni’s. That should be repeated so we can exploit the cleverness of a wide range of people in a range of applications and fields and not be blinded by the glitzy “promise” of academic marketing.
August 16, 2024
UDC why not make the whole of the UK a development area not just selected parts. Just relax planning, cut taxes, cut red tape, have easy hire and fire, halve at lease the size of government. Perfectly easy to do this.
August 16, 2024
My brother in law, who went to the LSE always say I must not use the term Oxbridge but use the term “The Golden Triangle” (to include London University, Imperial and perhaps even The LSE).
August 16, 2024
‘Imperial and the LSE’ 🤣😂
August 16, 2024
topuniversities.com, 08/08/2024 ‘The world’s 100 top universities’.
1. MIT, 2. Imperial, 3. Oxford, 4. Harvard, 5. Cambridge, 6. Stanford, 7. ETH Zurich, 8. NUS Singapore, 9. UCL, 10. Caltech. LSE is 50th.
So Lynn, only one laugh please.
August 17, 2024
No offence, it may technically be true but sounds a bit pretentious ..
August 17, 2024
@Dixie,
OK, well let’s look at why people in the High Tech Industry move to Cambridge.
So take the American CEO of Secondmind (car engineering/design company with about 50 employees). Why did he move to Cambridge?
1. INNOVATION. Compares Cambridge to Silicon Valley as, ‘a global pinnacle of innovation-fuelled commercial excellence, judged by a number of metrics, not least the numbers of multi-unicorns it continues to produce.’
2. RESEARCH. ‘within the UK, Cambridge is probably best for AI research and innovation, and Oxford second’
3. CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY. ‘[and he move to Cambridge] Partly because of the University but also because of its schooling.
4. EDUCATION FOR KIDS. ‘Brotman finds Cambridge a dream city for education and says this excellence was a key factor for him and his family when deciding to move to the UK, and it helped them settle as seamlessly as possible’
5. CULTURE. ‘tremendous opportunity to attract top talent from elsewhere to fill these gaps because Cambridge is rich in culture and has so much to offer professionals and their families.”
6. SYMBIOSIS. ‘He is also impressed with the efforts of the University to engage more widely with other areas of the UK to counter physical growth problems and foster the development of innovative, commercially viable businesses – symbiosis again’ – and ‘So we go back to the future: Symbiosis: Securing corporate success isn’t an either or. This is not a question of Cambridge having to ape Silicon Valley to be regarded as the UK equivalent.’
7. STARTUPS. ”Brotman applauds the continued drive to encourage more startups and spin-outs to learn more about the journey of taking innovative research and technology and turning it into commercial reality through business and product examples and best practices.’
August 17, 2024
Why doesn’t the Tory Party organise a smart drinks / dinner party inviting all the leading high-tech CEOs from the Cambridge area and using this as an opportunity for informal research about how viable Cambridge as Europe’s Silicon Valley, what kind of UK Silicon Valley would these CEOs envision / want? Everything from transport to housing and roads and incentives to get more high tech into Cambridge area. And if Cambridge is definitely the best UK location for this.
Something like that.
August 18, 2024
The UK is more than Cambridge and the economy more than AI.
We need a critical mass of skills and endeavors around the country that provides and exploits opportunities in many industries. Focusing on the “big two” is unnecessarily self-limiting, they may consider themselves to be elite but not in most of the areas and capabilities this country needs to prosper.
Demanding all attention be focused there is delusional and damaging, it insults the efforts and achievements of far more people and endeavours around our country.
We need to be promoting and supporting R&D manufacturing and commerce about the country in a whole raft of activities that accelerate and support our ability to make useful stuff including aerospace, advance manufacturing, pharma, space sciences, electronics and semiconductors etc.
PS Investment and involvement are so much more helpful than drinkies and canapes. We’ll have to see just how supportive and meaningful the UK/GB ISA will be.
August 16, 2024
At the height of the British Empire, the British government employed just 40,000 civil servants … globally!
This without computers, software, phones, email, GPS or modern banking, these 40,000 people ran the largest global empire in history. Today the UK government has over 478,000 so what do they all do? Create pointless work for each mainly other I assume.
August 16, 2024
LL
Indeed, and it appeared to be much, much more efficient with these old fashioned pen pushers in place, than the current lot with all of their computers and internet connections.
The admin of government has morphed into an inefficient monster, that consumes huge sums of money, and offers little in return to the taxpayer.
August 16, 2024
Indeed engineers and scientist make huge strides in efficiency and unit costs only to have it all gobbled up by government employed parasites.
August 16, 2024
Sadly John no one in Government past or present is listening.
Our Fishing stocks have being plundered by others for years, and I see no change of attitude from our Ministers.
We cannot seem to stop illegal entry by rubber dinghy, so how would we ever police our waters from trawlers.
All of our past major industries have either been shrunk back to near nothing, or have moved on to pastures anew.
Our natural resources of Coal, Gas and Oil are now being left in the ground, meanwhile we import solar panels and wind turbines.
Difficult to make it up really.
August 16, 2024
Indeed so.
August 16, 2024
BA,
‘ Sadly John no one in Government past or present is listening.’
Could apply to most recent topics on this site . Starmer is now a man on a mission to do as much as he can get away with as quickly as possible.
I am not sure if he is wilfully ignorant, or just does not care, or has another agenda. Maybe a combination of these.
August 16, 2024
As far as I’m concerned the Prime Minister and the MPs who voted to transfer OUR territorial fishing waters to the EU were traitors.
And so were the PMs and MPs who refused to reclaim them when the British people had given them a clear instruction to LEAVE the EU. Instead they betrayed the people for a second time.
The Treacherous Tories did nothing to restore a viable fishing industry in the coastal communities and there is no chance that Labour. Neither give a 4X for for their people.
But I’m sure the coastal communities will have registered that on the Eastern seaboard, Reform now has 4 MPs, plus another one in Essex, and they’ll draw the correct conclusion.
August 16, 2024
Forgive me for saying this, but you sound like Nigel Farage who has been saying all the above ever since 2016, if not before.
Our fishing industry is largely an export industry, dependant on the EU as a customer. The whole population of Spain eats fish and shellfish in large quantities. We in the UK do not venture far beyond fish fingers and fish and chips. If we do it is very expensive if you can find it. Away from the coast it is almost impossible, except via very expensive internet sources where Langostinos/Large prawns from south american waters cost twice as much as they do in Spain. A 2 Kg box was around 18 euros in a Spanish supermarket less than two years ago. I will check Mercadona’s current price later. Ironically much of the shellfish you can buy in Spain comes from the UK.
So if you further restrict fishing around the UK for EU boats, you further alienate the EU and they retaliate by making it more restrictive to export UK caught fish to them.
Solution.
1. Increase UK consumption by marketing and affordable prices. The supermarkets stock what people buy. There is a health benefit too.
2. Create an export market independant of the EU. The japanese love fish and shellfish. They are about 12 hours flying time from St Mawgan, and less from Glasgow airport or Dyce.
Do it before restricting EU access. Back it with effective Royal Navy fishery patrols by sea and air. Train more fishermen and support them with affordable housing in their home ports. Re-introduce overnight fish trains to speed and reduce transport costs. Force supermarkets to train their own counter staff comprehensively. Listen to Nigel Farage and Rick Stein, problem solved. Will anyone in power, fat chance.
Reply I helped the Cons develop a good fishing policy when last in Opposition but they failed to do it in government
August 16, 2024
Adendum.
Frozen Langostinos/Large Prawns in Mercadona’s supermarkets today are just over €11.0/Kg, translate at €1.17=£1.00. Now check any prawn offerings in the UK.
August 16, 2024
Checked out one UK retail source for largish prawns, which dependent on state are offered at £20.00 to £30.00 per kilo. More than double the price the spanish pay. Welcome to fishless UK.
August 16, 2024
Slim pickings post Brexit and COVID. Waitrose Friday discounts on fish declined dramatically. Proper wet fish shops still had stock but it was expensive. Frozen haddock is not too dear for things like Cullen Skink.
August 16, 2024
Would it not make sense to moderate the submission before the adendums to make greater sense.
August 16, 2024
There is a great deal of victim blaming going on with regard to the current epidemic of cancer. You got bowel cancer because you ate too much red meat. You got lung cancer because you used to smoke tobacco. You got skin cancer because you had too many holidays in the sun. The elderly get cancer because they live too long. Every day in the media new foods that “cause” cancer are listed.
But in reality, the cause of the current cancer epidemic is staring us in the face – it started with the atmospheric nuclear bomb tests in the 1940s. Roughly 1700 atmospheric bomb tests were conducted before the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty prohibited all test detonations of nuclear weapons except for those conducted underground.
Vast amounts of highly radioactive and long-lived fallout was sucked up into the atmosphere by the nuclear tests and distributed around the globe. Then there was Britain’s Chernobyl, the disastrous Windscale fire of 1957, which burned for three days and nights and irradiated Britain and Western Europe. Today, inhabitants of nearby villages are still finding small lumps of plutonium in their back gardens.
Windscale – Three Mile Island – Chernobyl – Fukushima. Maybe the anti-nuclear Greens are right, the risks with nuclear power are too great.
August 16, 2024
An excellent post. I’m all for catching and landing our own fish. At all costs Macron should be prevented from catching yet more of our fish.
Unfortunately the Birds Eye fish processing factory in Hull closed many years ago and their Grimsby factory caught fire and burned down in 2007. The site was cleared and re-developed for brown-field housing
August 16, 2024
When I was young, even during WW2, fish was an affordable, regular food on the table. Unlike other staples such as meat, butter or eggs it was not rationed as I recall. In the fairly small community where I lived there were at least three fishmongers helped by proximity to a railway hub. Now it is an expensive luxury – the other day I saw Norwegian halibut steaks offered at GBP 12 each.
The capacity of the ruling elite to screw things up, to squander natural advantages is why we are in a mess today. The decline and fall of the fishing industry is a prime example. I have no confidence that the dogma driven Labour government will be any different.
August 16, 2024
When I was a young lad I lived near the coast and went to school within walking distance of a beach. There was a bus stop there and in good weather me and a friend went down there.
Frequently fishermen landed their cobles and had so many mackeral they gave each of us as many as we wanted to take home.
August 16, 2024
The British stock market is experiencing somewhat of a renaissance; the FTSE 100 has recently made an all time high. Global financial institutions appear to be investing in us again. This is good news for those who have pensions in drawdown. Rock on UK plc
August 16, 2024
You will probably find that the majority of UK stocks are international trading companies generating the majority of their revenue overseas, this does not mean the overall UK economy is doing well.
August 16, 2024
The results of FTSE 100 companies are dominated by overseas trade not by UK trade. AIM on the other hand is mostly comprised of actual UK companies. It is down 20% with no signs of revival – rather the reverse.
August 16, 2024
FTSE AIM was at about 1200+ in 2021Q4 it dropped by about 30-35% over the whole of 2022 and it has stayed more or less at around 800- since.
August 16, 2024
A lot of “white fish” turns up in pet food and frozen fish products.
Whatever that is!
My grandmother used to buy great big fillets of coley for her cat.
From a proper wet fishmonger.
August 16, 2024
Back in the 50s Britain had lots of Wet Fish Shops. And no tinned cat food! Your grandmother must have been rich. My grandparents’ cat was fed on fish heads and offcuts from the local shop. Cooked on a gas ring in the outhouse due to the awful smell.
August 16, 2024
Coley was a very cheap fish and fairly pongy…and well, even cod wasn’t dear!
My grandmother did dote on cats so they dined well.
There was Kit e Kat…a very pink product in a blue labelled tin.
And Tibs which were yeasty tablets for general cat health.
August 16, 2024
Everhopeful.
My Mum used to do exactly the same for her cat back in the 1960’s !
Again from a proper wet fishmonger who’s shop was just 50 yards from where we lived.
We used to buy a variety of fish and shell fish for our own meals.
Good fresh fish does not have much of a smell.
August 16, 2024
What a raw point this totemic failure to look after our own fishing grounds has been.
The Govt. should say that until the small boat illegal immigration stops, no more French or Spanish boats are allowed to fish in our waters.
Mark B makes very good observations.
The abuse and destruction of our fishing stocks needs to stop.
August 16, 2024
It’s not just fishing industry that requires rebuilding Sir John. Just as we import our own fish back from those EU fleets who are taking our own fish from ‘our’ waters. We are also importing Oil and Gas needed to maintain basic energy needs, when those exact same energy assets lie beneath our own lands? The loss of revenue, the loss of taxation potential and the increase in our balance of trade deficit, is happening because successive governments have chosen to block extraction.
Go figure, as they say in the USA.
August 16, 2024
Regarding fishing, the Brexit deal was flawed from the start. Massive bureaucratic requirements were immediately imposed by the EU, while EU fishing fleets were allowed to continue fishing our waters for 5 years. The result has been a big drop in exports to EU countries, especially of shellfish products. Our fishing industry exports have been strangled in red tape.
The Tory government that negotiated Brexit initially had a red line: EU vessels would be banned from operating within 6-12 nautical miles of our coast. However, Johnson agreed to the final version of the pact which didn’t include that prohibition. That’s assuming he ever bothered to read it, of course.
August 16, 2024
Oh these very clever Tories never need to read what they have signed. Famously Douglas Hurd.
He was a very superior sort of chap. Came to Chepstow when Foreign Secretary and told us he had been in ‘Malaysia, Singapore, Saigon…. and Chepstow’ that week. I cut in and welcomed him to Chepstow observing that one would only have been in the other places under duress.
August 16, 2024
And the likelihood of any of this happening under Labour?
Exactly.
The conservatives dragged their heels on grabbing the benefits of allegedly being free of EU dictates, there’s not a hope in hell that the other half of the Uni-Party will make hay.
If anything I fear we may be dragged back into its clutches, with lots of denial that this is the case of course.
Anyone who says different could possibly feel the ‘full force of the law’. That’s where we are heading.
August 16, 2024
Fishing is a hard life and I can not see too many millennials nor generation Z wanting to become life long fishers of fish. No doubt we will need to import more workers to do this and then pay in work and housing benefits to them which will cost the taxpayer while not increasing GDP per capita.
Give our current fleet sufficient licences to thrive an expand incrementally but then make it a condition of licences granted to EU vessels that the catch must be landed and processed in the UK.
The EU will find resistance to their import rules from its own fishery industry if they have to export their catch from the UK.
August 16, 2024
Fish still landed in North Shields. Lovely aroma, wonderful freshness. Too few boats!
August 16, 2024
We joined the EEC with full knowledge of the 1970 Common Fisheries Policy which our fishing industry was not happy about.
Other countries it seems, were much more vigilant at protecting their own fishing rights. From us too despite our idiotic generosity.
August 16, 2024
This is of course the opposite of what will happen. As predicted by some (including though I say it myself, me) it is now quite clear that Labour are working surreptitiously to unwind Brexit. Not that the Conservatives did much with Brexit other than formally leaving the EU. It is reported that Sir keir and his colleagues want to do bilateral deals which they will facilitate by having the U.K. unilaterally and voluntarily follow the relevant EU rule book. The slightly tricky thing is the EU will also say the ECJ must have jurisdiction over any disputes, rule interpretations etc. a few years of this, and if Labour win again, the process will be accelerated and become more open, most likely with a formal rejoining of the SM and CU. From there it would be a short hop to rejoin sometime in the 2030s, assuming the euro system hasn’t by then imploded.
So we can forget about ‘taking control of our fish’.
Anyone who supports Brexit but didn’t vote Conservative should not of course be complaining.
August 16, 2024
They got ECJ because of N.Ireland! We also paid fines to EU even though we left and the EU wanted punitive fines to apply across the whole of the UK not just to N.Ireland! Sunak and his socialist pro EU mob sold out the the nation. Now each of them want to be leader!
The polls show people waking up to the fact Reform Party is the only opposition choice.
August 16, 2024
Reform got about the same number of votes as UKIP in 2015. If next time 3-4m vote reform again then of course it increases the chance of a second Labour term. I agree there’s much to criticise the Conservatives for, but we’ve already seen how much worse Labour are.
August 16, 2024
Reform will do very well in old Labour areas next time – the red wall will be downed for good and never be blue again either.
August 16, 2024
What’s the fishing industry worth? 1% of debt interest?
The government just doesn’t care about it. The best hope is they ban the trawlers that rip up the sea bed on environmental grounds, but if it’s going to meet with resistance from EU interests then they just don’t want to upset them.
August 16, 2024
Sir John
” Our fleets dwindled.” ? they were ordered to be destroyed and the UK Government complied.
August 16, 2024
A bit like our energy sector ….our own government(s) believes it better to import (fish/energy/steel/ev-cars/cheap-labour etc)
August 16, 2024
Unless the fishermen have a Union representing them they are not going to get anywhere.
August 16, 2024
Parson Woodforde had a fishpond in his garden full of freshwater fish for eating and providing at least some iodine.
(His only competition was a she otter)
There is supposed to be a link between certain health problems and lack of seafood/iodine in areas remote from the sea.
Surely we must all eat a great deal less cod etc and thus less iodine than previously?
Can’t be good.
August 16, 2024
I am currently in Findhorn, a small fishing village in the north east of Scotland. The nearest fishmonger is a 40 minute drive away in Buckie. There appears to be nowhere to buy fresh fish between Inverness and Buckie. A 50 mile stretch of what used to be fishing villages.
August 16, 2024
Some years ago I spent a summer in that lovely region. I had lots of fish to eat at that time but we had to catch it ourselves from a dinghy! Pollock and, if lucky, mackerel seemed to be the main species. Now the fish in my diet is provided by a supermarket.
August 16, 2024
Wonderful area. Pity about the lack of fresh fish.
August 16, 2024
ALL Governments like banning things but you’d find it hard to argue that Labour likes it more than the Conservatives: fixed-term tenancies, gas boilers, petrol and diesel cars, fracking, smoking … the list goes on and on.
August 16, 2024
Sir John
We cant rebuild as the French want our fish, if they don’t get to take it at will they will cut of our energy supplies, our electricity and then where we be. Successive Governments have handed our vital supplies and infrastructure over to foreign state owned so-called companies. We have been manoeuvred by our own government into being puppets of those we cant elect, that now control our existence, the political whims of foreign powers, no energy no tomorrow.
I would guess Red Ed is running around bartering more of our own owned capabilities of existence to foreign powers if he thinks it will keep the lights on and remove the UK’s resilience and self-reliance. His and his Party’s desire is for there to be no longer a UK, just a Socialist World Order Empire, that tramples us all for personal self desire of a ruling class.
August 16, 2024
So why did the Tory Government not follow through with this when we were supposed to have got our freedom from the oppressor? Missed the chance I would say and the present occupant of No 10 has no intention of taking back control. What to do? Vote Reform I would say and give them a chance.
August 16, 2024
Our leaders are deliberately creating the situation whereby we can be blackmailed by the EU over energy supply in order to avoid retaking our fishing grounds.
‘We would control our fisheries but the EU would shut off the interconnectors’.
‘We would deport illegal immigrants but European courts…..’.
You can lead a donkey to water but you can’t make it drink.
August 16, 2024
Sir JR, your ideas are sound but can only come about through a sensible government. Something we have lacked for a long time.
The latest version of our government is so in thrall to the EU, it’s more likely to return to the EU common fisheries policy.
August 16, 2024
Agree 150%.
The CFP was hastily put together in the lead up to the UK joining the then EEC precisely with the aim of stealing UK’s fish. Heath was well aware but instructed his negotiators to swallow the lot. It preceded by ten years the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea which in 1982 extended territorial waters and created Exclusive Economic Zones UNCLOS gives coastal states unprecedented and exclusive power to lay down the law in both their territorial waters and EEZs. It gives them powers to take pre-emptive action in the Contiguous Zone, a futher 24nm beyond the territorial limit to prevent a breach of its laws and regulations to prevent the infringement of its customs, fiscal, immigration, or sanitary laws and regulations within its territory or territorial sea, and punish infringement of those laws and regulations committed within its territory or territorial sea.
While in the EEC/EU Britain could not take much advantage of UNCLOS which permits coastal states to delegate their powers under UNCLOS to another state or collective organisation such as the EU.
Since Brexit, the UK seems to have been ‘not bothered’ at all about fishing, presumably swallowing the Remainer argument that it is a small part of the economy so not worth bothering with. Well of course its small: destroyed by the EU as a matter of policy – and not just the fish, also the British fishing fleet by subsidising its own trawler and fishing boat building to price out UK’s fishermen.
The EU’s malign influence also extends into the North Atlantic, rich grounds for Britain’s favourite fish, beyond the EEZs of its member states as it represents them directly or indirectly in the various fisheries councils.
August 16, 2024
Starmer is going to give our fishing away it Will be one of the things the EU will want for closer ties plus us excepting more refugees
Along with more EU rules with any vote or control
August 16, 2024
I truly believe that if the Tories won the next election, they’d extend the French/EU fishing treaty for another decade …I await for the leadership candidates to produce a position paper ….we currently can only catch 25% of our own fish
‘UK quota shares will increase gradually over five years to 25% of the value of the EU catch in UK waters. The increases will be phased in as follows: year 1 – 15%; year 2 – 17.5%; year 3 – 20%; year 4 – 22.5%; year 5 – 25%.’
https://fishingnews.co.uk/news/boris-brexit-betrayal/
August 16, 2024
The Tories wont be on power on June 26 2026 when the existing fisheries agreement with the EU and Norway expires.
August 16, 2024
The EU is just as rapacious off the coast of West Africa. Total greed.
August 16, 2024
Greed ( from all directions) probably at the root of all our fishing woes.
Distant fishing made easier by steam ships and refrigeration at sea replacing salting.
Led to overfishing and thus threatened fish supplies.
Some ideas of new, exotic cod replacement fish being dangerously full of mercury and bacteria including home farmed salmon.
All a mess and all so blinking typically self defeating.
Like e mails and intranets rather than shorthand and letters.
August 16, 2024
So that’s where my tin of anchovies came from (hard to get for some time), ‘packed in Morocco with anchovies caught in the Central Eastern Atlantic’. Eurabia.
August 16, 2024
+1 also total destruction.
August 16, 2024
This is just another example of the remoteness of political and other leaders from ordinary people.
We were ignored, and we are still ignored. We have only one alternative, which inevitably leads to the streets.
Look at history. Real change was only brought about that way. Here our leader Keir Stalin knows this and intends to stop it with totalitarianism and greater force as we have seen, and continue to see.
August 16, 2024
Fishing was one of the things bargained away by Heath to get UK into the club but in exchange the farmers got CAP and it worked ok for us so long as we were there. The problem is that the whole business of exiting was mismanaged and overdone – mismanaged by incompetents and overdone because we could have had brexit on more advantageous terms but we chose to overshoot and now we have less bargaining power than ever – we cannot blame the Europeans for this mess.
August 16, 2024
The UK fishing industry was a classic ‘own goal’ where the Government of the day knowingly ruined a thriving industry and economy and gave our fishing rights away to the EU.
Before the EU this industry was dominated by hard working long established fishing families who operated boats from ports around the UK; this was killed off by the simple decision to accept and not oppose the EU Common Fishing Policy and allow foreign boats to fish within our 12 mile limit.These families have long gone and it is now too late to try and encourage a new generation of families to replace them.
After joining the EU, boats from Spain, Portugal, and France dominated our fishing grounds as well as the Russian ‘factory’ ships and this action then decimated the fish stocks.
If the UK fishing vessels were to fish in EU waters we were met with hostility and objection.
The rules for the EU boats were different than those for the British fishing vessels; one of these was the 8 day ‘tie up’ rule which applied to the UK only; as a result the UK boats had to keep their boats in harbour for 8 days every month to preserve our fishing stocks in UK waters; the same rule didn’t apply to foreign operated boats.
Even now we have articulated lorries coming from Spain and Portugal to buy our fish/shellfish from Scottish ports and fish auctions.
40 years ago there were literally hundreds of fishing boats operating out of Hull,Grimsby,Aberdeen,Peterhead etc.etc.Today you can count those boats on just two hands.
The Conservative government of the day was to blame for destroying an industry and an economy which they didn’t fight to protect and which can never be recovered.
August 16, 2024
This is yet another blatant example of the failure of the civil service and government to make the most of Brexit.
Since 2016 I have repeatedly suggested on this blog and direct to Government that we should immediately have commissioned a new fishing fleet of larger boats than our mainly small coastal boats which are largely less than 8m in length. The new fleet could have been built in Britain and leased to UK skippers on favourable rates, as long as they operated out of UK ports and were crewed by Britsh nationals, including a percentage of apprentices.
Sadly nothing whatsoever was done and we literally missed the boat. With the review of the current terrible fishing agreement due shortly, we should have a firm strategy to take back more of our fishing waters and build the boats to fish them !
I fear that the Remainers in the Min of Agg will continue to try to curry favour with Brussels by acting against our interests and I doubt whether the arch-Remainer, Starmer, will make any effort either. Bitterly Disappointing
August 16, 2024
Excellent article, but it illustrates the crass stupidity of our leaders since the 1960s.
August 16, 2024
“Take back control and rebuild our fishing fleets”
The sabotaging of our fishing industry over many years is one of the successes of the UK’s fifth column communists masquerading as socialists which they achieved even before they began implementing their “Net Zero Strategy” designed to destroy our economy through de-industrialisation.
And what will power the new ‘build back greener’ fishing vessels? Sails and oars? Batteries and chargers on the wind turbines?
There is no CAGW according to the IPCC Working Group 1 (“The Science”) who calculate just 1.2 degrees C of warming for a doubling of CO2 (P95) and cannot find any signal for climate change other some slight warming (Table 12 in Chapter 12).
It is time we had a referendum on Net Zero before we are subjected to the rationing of energy, food and travel necessary to achieve it.
August 16, 2024
I remember back in the 70s when PM Heath terminated 30,000 jobs in fishing and thousands in agriculture, so that his country could be part of the EEC.
Instead of buying our own produce and fish in the UK we ended up having to buy the fish from British waters, from other Nation members of the EEC.
Likewise much produce from our previously sound agricultural industry.
We, the citizens were lied to by that man who was rewarded with £30K from Brussels for securing the UK entry into the EEC.
Ultimately, although firmly denied by Heath at the time, the EEC morphed in the EU as was actually written into joining the EEC.
Both Tory, Enoch Powell and left winger Tony Benn warned us of this but sadly, we chose to believe the lying PM Heath at the time and sacrificed all of those jobs with it.
Surely, with the rising costs of living here, now is the time to get all of those lost jobs back to these shores, is it not?
August 16, 2024
In the 1970s, we, the British citizens, were mislead by PM Heath, who was actually awarded with £30K from Brussels for ‘securing the UK entry into the EEC’. However, upon joining the EEC, (AKA The Common Market) around 30,000 jobs and many boats in fishing were lost along with many thousands in our agricultural industry.
Ultimately, although firmly denied by Heath at the time, the EEC morphed in the EU as was actually written into the agreement when joining the EEC.
Both Tory, Enoch Powell and left winger Tony Benn warned us of this but sadly, we chose to believe the dubious PM Heath at the time and unknowingly sacrificed all of those jobs with our decision.
Surely, with the rising costs of living here, NOW is the time to get all of those lost jobs back to these shores, is it not?
August 16, 2024
The last government willfully destroyed our fishing industry, amongst others and I don’t believe any “new” Conservative government will do anything for our benefit regardless of what words they use and what postures they adopt.
If it is any consolation I have the same opinion of Labour and Libdems except I fully expect those bloodsuckers to damage the productive sectors, individuals and investors even more.
August 16, 2024
While it is true that the fishing industry ‘only’ represents 1% of GDP, this is hardly surprising considering that Edward Heath gave away our fishing industry in return for the privilege of being ripped off by the EEC.
The fishing industry is in ghastly mess as a result of the failure of all governments to give it any priority to counter the depredations of continental fisherMEN.
DEFRA is a truly dreadful organisation which should never have existed and should be abolished. There is never anyone on the board who knows anything about the fishing industry and the only ‘scientist’ is an expert on how the global warming hoax impacts the seas at different depths without reference to how this in any way impacts the sea creatures many of whom have never heard of the global warming hoax.
The system of quotas in which different species of fish are allocated needs to be abolished. The EU have this system which involves civil servants negotiating endlessly to agree allocations of different species of fish.
First of all fishing vessels of foreign beneficial ownership should be banned from our EEZ. British fisherMEN should be allowed to catch fish and land them without interference from civil service fisheries officers who presently outnumber them. FisherMEN can be prosecuted for catching fish for which they do not have a quota or have exhausted their quota and can be prosecuted for dumping them as well. The civil servants in DEFRA are obviously unaware that shoals of fish are not under their legislative control and can move around such that fisherMEN can catch them without that intention. The only constraint on fishing should be the closure of fish nurseries and the landing of fish which are undersized. It might be a good idea
for us not to continue to be the Saudi Arabia of wind as well as it creates a hostile environment for fish and fisherMEN.
August 16, 2024
LOL get over it! We left EU couple of years ago. Still whining about it. 😀
August 16, 2024
People might want to read the Hook and Net interview of the then CP UK Fisheries Minister on 09/02/2024 stating his position for the June 2026 TCA renegotiations.
mag.hookandnet.com ‘Fisheries must be separate issue in Brexit review’.
August 16, 2024
Can we consider where the main sea fish consumed in Britain are? Cod and haddock are not found so much in UK waters, but off the coast of the non-EU countries Norway and Greenland. I gather waters closer to home are best for shellfish, crab, lobster etc., which sell well in the EU, but don’t have such a big market in this country. All that being so, the best thing for our fishing industry would be to have a substantial quota of fishing rights in the North Atlantic and easy access to EU markets. Back under Heath and his successors, we didn’t defend our rights very well re the first requirement, and with Brexit exposed our fishing industry to EU bureaucratic retaliation re the second. So government policy landed fisherfolk in the briny on both counts.
August 17, 2024
Norwegians have plenty of cod because it is actually caught in the Barents Sea by Russian trawlers and rebadged as Norwegian. Our fishermen were also catching these fish until they were thrown out because of the Tory Party’s warmongering against Russia.