Yesterday we were told of yet more delay in taking back control of our fish. The government should tell the EU we will resume control in March 2019, as we need to put in a new policy to save what is left of our home industry and get it growing again.
There are two things the government has promised that I agree with
Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.
No Deal is better than a bad deal.
It is difficult to know what the government will get in return for the very generous draft offers it has made over money, fish, law taking and freedom of movement for the so called Implementation period.
There is no need for an Implementation period unless there is something really good to implement which takes time.
My advice to the government is to make sure everything works on March 29 2019 when we want to leave. What could be sorted out or agreed after March 2019 that cannot be sorted out in the next year?
Let’s cut back the period of uncertainty.
March 21, 2018
I cannot see “Making our own trade deals” is some kind negotiated success. When we leave we will automatically get that.
“The rights of EU citizens living here” We will determine that when we leave.
” The borders” No-one on earth can tell us what kind of border we shall have.
” The tariffs” We shall determine that when we leave by automatic self-decision.
” Our fishing grounds” They already belong to us.
” Our agricultural subsidies” ours to decide
“Who we cooperate with on defence and security” Our decision.
Given that Germany and France get quite a bit of internal terrorist attacks it is in their interest to get us on board.
Mr Davis is a nice person. But he has not achieved anything in the talks except agreeing to what we will get anyway without talking. If a country were to start being funny with our citizens living there we can get funny back x 3. That is 3 million EU citizens live here and just one million live in the EU who still call themselves for official purposes British.
Mr Davis says he is now going on to the next step. He hasn’t got on the first step yet!
March 21, 2018
His great mistake was to fall into the trap of agreeing to the EU’s timetable for talks. He said at the time he did that to put the continentals and the ex-pats out of their uncertainty, but the price has been huge. Here we are, having made all these unnecessary concessions and we still haven’t started to talk about the future relationship. Once Mrs May’s initial overtures on reciprocal rights had been rebuffed by France, Germany, and the Commission, he should have cracked on with talking about the future relationship, and if they refused, then walked away. As you say, none of our sovereign rights need to be negotiated: they are ours.
March 21, 2018
The fact is trade talks could go on forever after her extension! There is no time limit to trade talks is their JR? The EU could string this along for years only if the U.K. continues to pay in the coffers in addition to paying the £100 billion ransom for nothing. No legal liability. Is this correct JR? In other words leaving in name only and paying a huge substantive amounts for nothing in return. The EU using the U.K. As an example to other countries what will happen if they leave. Idiot May going along with it.
March 21, 2018
And I see that Frau Merkel has been putting her oar in with regard to the Irish border. Makes me wonder if her intentions are strictly honourable.
March 21, 2018
Merkel doesn’t know the meaning of the word. She is not to be trusted as Cameron found out to his cost.
March 25, 2018
Tad Davison: “Makes me wonder if her intentions are strictly honourable.”
She’s sold her own people out, what does she care about the Irish, or come to that the British?
Then, I suppose the same could be said for British politicians too.
March 21, 2018
‘Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.
No Deal is better than a bad deal.’
Yes – but the government is only paying lip service to this.
They are just stringing along those who are deluded enough to believe them.
Then, once it is all signed and sealed, it will be too late to do anything about it and the main players will retire.
March 21, 2018
He should be on the everlasting naughty step with the dunce hat on forever. He is a National embarrassment and disgrace. Totally useless. We could always negotiate trade deals BEFORE we left and don’t need their agreement. We just couldn’t implement them until we left, but he has even extended that for 21 months, whilst paying £100 billion for the privilege with millions more arriving unimpeded, being given free health, housing, benefits, free state pensions for their relatives, at no cost to them!! No doubt some of the new German Nationals will be fast tracked over here!
What has he actually achieved at all?
Gove should join him on the step for saying the EU were being terribly difficult in negotiations representing the EU! Totally inept cremarks. Why couldn’t our Government represent us? We’re out on the 31st March 2019, no need to extend their fishing rights as they keep saying we’re no longer a member with any rights but comply with all new and future laws during the extension, for what?? A vassal state.
Your leader, Ms May will live on forever in history as the appeaser who gave away Northern Ireland to her beloved EU, despite saying “no British Prime Minister” could agree to it just 19 days before! Moreover, no deal is better than bad deal. What part of any of this is good?
March 21, 2018
The U.K. account for about half the Australian inward investment exports and imports. The EU dresses this up as their third largest trade partner, not without the U.K.! How many taxes and tariffs lost by the U.K. Leading the EU?
EU still not talking about the attrocities in Africa on white farmers and has banned talking bout it, the U.K. has followed and still gives millions in aide!
March 21, 2018
Good morning,
Two questions Dr. Redwood if you would be so kind:
First, have you seen or do you know of a draft new FTA, that is better than WTO terms?
Second, can you confirm that, to your own satisfaction, adequate preparations are being made for WTO trade terms on 31-3-2019?
March 21, 2018
IT seems Mr Redwood cannot think beyond tariffs. Mention:
1) Sanitary & Phytosanitary (SPS) matters
2) Border Inspection Points (BIPs)
3) EU Designated Ports of Entry
4) Just-in-time (JIT) component reliant British industries
5) Potential loss of up to £240 billion in lost trade due to above delays
… and he doesn’t have much to say. Yet because we aren’t going to get our less than £1bn fishing industry back he is yelling from the rooftops.
March 21, 2018
Excellent summary of the metropolitan pro-EU attitude. No thought whatsoever given to the fact that entire towns and villages can self-sustain around the fishing industry.
Would you rather see entire communities emasculated by having their traditional and proven lifestyles removed so that the people have to work crappy jobs in …………. or live on benefits?
Still, as long as the massive corporations produce lots of taxes to make your surroundings prettier, who cares about people who actually work for a living, eh? You’ll realise you can’t eat money when the fish have all gone and the country’s covered in houses and roads.
March 21, 2018
We should leave in March 2019. No transition period.What an absurd idea. When was there a “transition period” when we joined? Our trading partners suddenly had to get the idea we had stabbed them in the back , smacked them on the nose, without so much s a “Put up your dukes matey”.
If there were any transition period then the two years since Article 50 should do it plus the year Mrs May has been dragging her feet awaiting a reversal in our opinion well worked at with the Remainers and the EU itself acting in unison. Even the same phrases. Did they practise the identical speeches together in some romantic Italian tavern? No, I think it was Spain from what I hear, mainly, and France. Walls have ears. In the future a clever investigative journalist, and really good looking, will produce transcripts of those talks. I bet.
March 21, 2018
There had been twelve years of transition when the original six members set up their Common Market, Article 8 here:
http://aei.pitt.edu/37139/1/EEC_Treaty_1957.pdf
“The common market shall be progressively established during a transitional
period of twelve years … ”
And then there were various transitional periods written into the accession treaties when the UK and two other countries joined later.
There is nothing unusual about including transitional provisions in treaties so that the necessary changes are phased in gradually or step-wise to minimise disruption, what is unusual is a transition period when nothing at all changes.
I said all this and more as long ago as October:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2017/10/24/small-business-brexit-and-the-budget/#comment-896603
“Of course, it’s only necessary to look up the definition of “transition” to see that.
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/transition
Transition:
“The process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another.”
Not:
“A period during which nothing changes from the original state or condition”
There are words which describe the latter, including “stasis”, or if you like “delay”, but not “transition”, and it is a complete oxymoron to talk about a “standstill transition”.”
But there is where we have got to, and most of our politicians seem perfectly happy to keep repeating the same old garbage to insult our intelligence.
March 21, 2018
Exactly – the transition period or implementation period as politicians prefer to call it is totally unnecessary and a delaying tactic. Hapless May wasted a whole year before talks even began and article 50 was invoked. June 2016 to March 2019 should have been plenty of time to do what needed to be done and for us to get used to it if those doing the negotiating on our behalf were up to it – which they’re clearly not.
March 21, 2018
Any transition period puts us at a further disadvantage as it gives the EU chance to put contingencies in place.
Leaving with no transition makes continuing with the trading status quo more likely not less likely.
March 21, 2018
Indeed May did waste a year but it was mainly the appalling Cameron & Osborne who were to blame. Failing to issue the notice the next day (as he promised he would), resigning immediately (when he promised not) and failing to prepare for both fairly equally likely outcomes.
Call that leadership? They should cancel his state pension and demand a refund of his salary for gross negligence of duty.
Still we have to be grateful that his “thin gruel” fake renegotiation. It was so pathetic that we clearly had to vote leave.
March 21, 2018
@JoolsB; “Hapless May wasted a whole year before talks even began and article 50 was invoked.”
No time has been wasted, if you remember there was no plan for Brexit (not even leaving on WTO rule), those on the govt benches calling for Brexit forgot to make any, things would be even worse now for the UK had Cameron before resigning as PM -or May as her first act as PM- triggered A50.
March 22, 2018
@jerry.
I’ll wager that those on the government benches who advocated leaving have many plans and broad vision of how it would be achieved.
Getting those who campaigned for remaining, who form the majority of the Parliamentary Conservatives Party, to agree to that vision is another matter.
Do not ignore the fact that remainers hold the controlling hand.
March 22, 2018
@NS; So why have those Brexiteers who are now Ministers, some directly responsible for the delivery of Brexit, not acted on the plans you suggest were made?!
“Do not ignore the fact that remainers hold the controlling hand.”
Your opinion is noted, but the most senior person in face to face negotiations with the EU is a Brexiteer…
March 21, 2018
Well said, The Big Ear. Obviously our host agrees with us. But it seems that our PM has buckled under the pressure of big business. There are powerful giants who obviously gain so much from our membership of the execrable EU that an extra eighteen months of pocket-stuffing is worth paying out a goodly sum in lobbying. (I was going to use the word ”bribes” but thought better of it.)
March 21, 2018
Good morning.
I feel our kind hosts frustration but, the deal we will sign is far worse than the EEA Option that many, including myself, have been arguing. However, unlike others I never claimed it was perfect or, that it should be used as an alternative to being in the EU. I saw the EEA Option as the ‘Transition Phase’ and nothing else.
The EEA Option offers, despite its limitations, certain key benefits :
– It is already in operation and so the EU cannot pick away at us as it has done.
– It does not cover the CFP.
– Contributions are smaller.
– We would still have a say over EU Law, but the Commission would only be obliged to consult.
– We would be able to negotiate and trade just like any other sovereign nation without EU interference.
– We would not be subject to the entire aquis.
– And it would kick the Irish border question into the long grass, at least until we got ourselves sorted.
– And finally. It would offer people and business a certain level of certainty over the future.
But, there were those that just wanted it all and wanted it now ! Trouble is, we have allowed the EU to do most of what we did ourselves and so not have the capacity eg Negotiators 😉
But I suppose it is up to Parliament to once again roll-over and do what is easy rather than do what is right.
March 21, 2018
Apart from anything else, Norway is not in the EU but it is in EFTA and the EEA as you would wish us to be, however it has a customs border with the EU in the shape of Sweden which would still be infinitely too hard for the Irish government even though it is considered to be very much a “light touch” border.
https://news.sky.com/video/is-the-norway-sweden-border-a-solution-for-ireland-11141058
“Is the Norway-Sweden border a solution for Ireland?”
3 minutes in, the Irish Europe Minister Helen McEntee:
“We have been very very clear from day one, there cannot be a physical border and that means ruling out cameras, that means ruling out technology, that means ruling out anything that would imply a border on the island of Ireland, it is not an option for us”.
So the answer to the Sky headline question is “No, not unless the Irish government resiles from its present absurd, extreme and intransigent position”.
March 21, 2018
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-43473807
“Swedish expert offers post-Brexit Irish border solution”
“He described the current Sweden-Norway border as “60-75% a smart border with the potential to be improved further”.”
“The Smart Border 2.0 report was based on an enhanced version of the Sweden-Norway border arrangements.”
“Last week, the Irish government said ideas in Smart Border 2.0 would not be enough to prevent a hard border after Brexit.
In a letter to The Times newspaper, Ireland’s ambassador to the UK Adrian O’Neill, said proposals in the report “rely on both physical infrastructure and staffed border posts.””
However there is this point which is potentially more positive: that it is a “political issue” to decide on the level of risk management required at the border, and it seems to me that as at present all sides agree that whatever risks there may be now while we are in the EU do not justify any controls at all the border then it has to be asked why that should change when we have left the EU.
In fact by analogy with my argument here:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/03/20/uk-energy/#comment-925993
having decided in 1993 that it was OK to have a completely open border while the UK was in the EU it could actually be a breach of WTO rules to create any restriction on trade across the border when the UK has left the EU unless there were clear justifications for doing that.
March 21, 2018
Denis
There is a border between the whole of the EU and the rest of the world. It is called the Customs Union.
The EU needs to maintain a CU as it needs the cash to bribe / fund other member states into remaining.
The UK leaving the EU will deprive it of much cash. What do you think is going to happen ? Serious question !
March 22, 2018
With cross-border co-operation collection of customs duties is perfectly possible with an open border.
March 21, 2018
Mark, there is no need for us to be paying the EU anything. In fact they should be paying us.
March 21, 2018
We will only be paying in to things that we want to be a part of.
March 21, 2018
Not forgetting:
1) the safeguard measures described in Article 112 of the EEA agreement concerning freedom of movement which would allow restrictions on EU immigration
2) we would immediately regain our right to a vote of the top tables at global standards organisations such as UNECE, WTO, ISO, ILO, IMO, Codex Alimentarius where EU regulations overwhelmingly originate.
March 22, 2018
Safeguard measures to control immigration into the UK which the EU would of course be perfectly content to see the UK unilaterally activate within the EEA, just as the UK pleased, even though the EU flatly refused to grant any such thing to David Cameron during his “renegotiation” of our EU membership … do you seriously think the EU and all its member states would be willing to allow the UK to stay in the EEA on those terms, when it has been repeatedly stated that the “four freedoms” are indivisible?
March 21, 2018
I don’t understand why our esteemed blogger is so surprised by this capitulation. The nation is led by a PM whose emotional loyalty is to the EU. We can all see this. We all know this.
I have said on many times that I believe Mr Redwood is one of the most decent, honest men in British politics but surely even he can see that electing May as leader was quite simply the wrong thing to do
I don’t for the life of me understand why or how a liberal left Europhile can become the leader of the conservative party. We are not Labour. I don’t want Tony Blair in a skirt to lead my party and impose her social engineering policies upon my children, nieces and nephews
We need a leader who is defiant, patriotic and defends our country with determination, without shame and with relish.
We need a leader who confronts the existential threat posed by a hard left party called Labour. This party is now in the back pocket of a Stalinist namely Len McCluskey. This man is a bigger danger to the UK than even the EU
Get us out of the EU. Abolish the opt-in system to cut off Labour’s funding and crush the left
March 21, 2018
May and Hammond are determined to keep us in the by stealth if necessary.
Using IRELAND as an excuse to keep us in the Customs Union and single market.
They really are happy to see us accept Vassal statehood.
She has to go.
March 21, 2018
Betrayal of our fishermen will cost you dearly at the next election and quite rightly so.
March 21, 2018
Dear Ian–It was blindingly obvious that our fishermen (“fisherpeople” to certain lefty idiots) would be sacrificed, just as they were before–There simply aren’t enough of them to make a difference politically–The country’s honour counts for diddly squat these days.
March 21, 2018
May claims water back in control but is still avoiding the fact fish quotas will favour EU after leaving.
Billions of taxpayer given away for nothing, our Money. Freedom of movement continues with Rudd writing to EU citizens to bring their family here! ECJ still applies and regulatory alignment to make sure the U.K. Is not more competitive than the EU. May has betrayed the public and every word she uttered about leaving the EU. JR and chums now have the chance to step up to the plate and oust her.
Backstabbing Gove, who was the remainers double agent to stimie Johnson to help the country leave, back in govt to help ameliorate leavers by his false untrustworthy words.
May allows smears and leaks against Johnson, slaps him down when promoting govt policy to leave, in contrast Hammond allowed to do and say what he wants no allowed to use Treasury to continue project fear to leave! I wonder why? Still no sacking of civil service akitKat policy to pay for Eau security and defence to hide from the public.
March 21, 2018
Betrayal of the the voting public not just fisherman. They claimed to accept the will f the people and would act on it. Hammond claimed very modest changes.
The Tory Govt has achieved the worse of all possible outcomes. it is not a transition for sure, it is a very expensive extension as a vassal state until we change our minds.
March 22, 2018
You have summed it up in a nutshell, Hope.
March 21, 2018
It appears there is already one mega fishing vessel sailing under the UK flag (british crew, owners a UK company indirectlt held by a Dutch fishing company. Long before there is a large enough UK fishing fleet (and experienced crews) the foreigners will have colonized the newly independent UK economic zone and be taking the profits.
March 21, 2018
Totally agree. The ‘Political Class’ are busy betraying Brexit and keeping us in the EU in all but name. It is shameful and a disgrace. Mrs May is showing herself far from being a ‘bloody difficult woman’ but merely useless at obtaining what is needed. This is to me a very bad deal and no MP should accept it.
March 21, 2018
Clarke said that accidentally on purpose to get her votes. He wanted her as his remain candidate. She is a bully to the weak, border agency and police who cannot fight back and a coward to those who stand up to her like the EU.
March 21, 2018
Clearly she has to go before the next election. But when and how can it be done without risking the dire Corbyn?
March 21, 2018
‘Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.’ is worthless unless UK finds a way of reclaiming the money it intends, according to David Davis, to pay during the transition – the thick end of £40 billion, more if the euro hits trouble again.
The EU has no legal right in international law to claim any fish whatsoever after March 2019. UNCLOS Article 62 is perfectly clear. UK as the coastal state is obliged only to negotiate access quotas for the surplus over and above what it catches itself and only insofar as the total catch is sustainable.
Then there is the business of the Irish border which threatens alignment of the whole of UK with the EU in perpetuity, depending on how you read the two conflicting paragraphs in the agreement. We know which way the EU reads them and Mrs May has demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt that she is not capable of standing up to the EU, even when the EU’s demands have no legal basis whatsoever.
UKG’s trajectory is now firmly on a trajectory of concessions in which reducing something marginally from the EU’s initial demand is claimed as a bonus, a victory for Britain. Given that under Mrs May UK will not not leave the EU for all intents and purposes except for sinking to vassal status, until the end of 2021, we do now have time to change our government. Risky as that may be it is the only hope of UK actually achieving Brexit.
March 21, 2018
I forgot to mention – and the much vaunted trade deal without which it is stated, contrary to the planned payments during transition, there will be no payments of the divorce bill, is not part of the so called transition deal. Transition to what? Affiliation to the Federal State of Europe, which will by then be visible in outline form? We have a Remainer government. That it would seek genuine independence of UK just before the opportunity to join the Federal State of Europe nor credible.
March 21, 2018
Exactly.
These are the two things from this government that I agree with too:-
Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed & No Deal is better than a bad deal.
Unfortunately I do not trust them on these things and I agree with almost nothing else from this tax to death, regulate to death and kill with high energy costs government. The lack of vision & leadership, the absurdly high & over complex taxation, the absurd energy policy, the ratting on the IHT promise, the gender pay gap lunacy, the building on EU workers rights, the job destroying minimum wage, the endless concessions to the EU and politically collect virtue signalling from this dithering government.
All this makes an even more damaging Corbyn/Mc Donnall government more and more likely by the day and that really must be avoided.
Even the “relatively” sound ministers like M Gove want to ban very useful and harmless dog collars and dog enclosure systems and suggested putting VAT on private school fees (which would kill many schools dead and cost the government money too). Other ministers even think HS2, Hinkley, the apprentice scheme, the workplace pension, and building on EU workers rights are good plans. What fools they all are.
March 21, 2018
Doubtless the government will agree that the British all have to call Hake “Colin” post the “Brexit in name only” and that the EU bureaucrats can decide what all our fish have to be called during the “time limited transition period” which will doubtless never end but keep changing its name.
March 21, 2018
The incomtence of the government on Brexit is worse than your article suggests. They are leaving negotiations in trade until this so-called implementation period. That means the EU will have already pocketed the £40bn and the Uk will have signed up to regulatory harmonisation, aka rule-taking in Norther Ireland. Uk leverage will have dramatically dropped once that happens. What incentive will the EU have to negotiate something better than the ‘backstop’ of regulatory harmonisation when harmonisation is what it wants?
The British government is an incompetent negotiator being undermined by Hammond into making one niave concession after another. You are going to reap the whirlwind at the next election for the most inept performance of any government in living memory.
March 21, 2018
I know they shouldn’t be about this, but I wonder if the local elections in little over a month’s time will reflect the public’s view of the appalling state of the EU negotiations and the UK’s concomitant and wholly unnecessary capitulation thus far?
Trouble is, most parties are in favour of the UK staying in the EU, so by giving one an electoral kicking only gives another load a shysters an opportunity to wreck things in their own way.
Mind you, if the level of defeat is big enough, it must surely send yet another message that the people are generally fed up with weak leadership and want change, but not necessarily a change of government.
Were this country a business, (and the two do indeed have similarities) and it was clear that the CEO was flapping and floundering whilst better people were to be had ‘in-house’, the board and shareholders could be excused for insisting on a change of personnel at the helm in order to make progress. I can’t imagine any successful company CEO giving so many advantages to its competitors for little if any gain for very long!
Tad
March 21, 2018
Yes that is how I see it. The Government’s negotiating tactic seems to be to waste time, in doing so strip us of our leverage , so that we have to accept what ever the EU demands of us. It is appalling way to negotiate, which is going to put us at a massive disadvantage when we eventually get round to negotiating the trade deal, and I cannot understand why there hasn’t been a peep of protest from the MPs. Well may be as most of the MPs in Westminster are remainers, they see it as a way to keep us in the EU as a vassal state, until they can undo the referendum.
March 21, 2018
A clear statement from JR, leaving no doubt where his vote will go. Jacob Rees-Mogg is regrettably more resigned, with his bon mot that Britain will spend time in Purgatory before reaching Heaven.
Well, the doctrine of Purgatory is no part of Holy Writ. This proposed deal on fishing is the piece of cod that passeth all understanding. I hope Conservative Brexiteers take their theology from JR not JRM.
March 21, 2018
It is JRM’s big moment, if he bottles it then he will be yesterday’s man.
March 21, 2018
I see JRM and other MPs have written to the PM to say they find the transition deal unacceptable.
March 21, 2018
Mogg is a weak man. Good with words – but actions speak louder than words.
He may claim that as a back bencher he cannot do more, but if he is spokesman for the ERG conservative leavers then that is not true. Defenestration was always an option.
March 21, 2018
Has the UK made ANY progress at all towards a deal worth signing?
March 21, 2018
No.
March 21, 2018
“Yesterday we were told of yet more delay in taking back control of our fish.”
Our fish? Has anyone told the fish!
We are getting far to bogged down and distracted by the issue of fish and the fishing industry, if it was (m)any other industries the right wing would have cut it free, as they did with coal, steel, the British owned car industry etc. Heck more recently this government has even allowed the sale of one of our most important (silicon) chip designer companies – I guess that they think that there are votes to be won (back) from UKIP in traditional fishing port areas, perhaps there are, but the next election will be won or lost along the length of ‘Main Street’ and its shops, factories and companies in those towns and cities well away from the coast.
Let they eat Hake, why, can’t they eat British lamb instead…
March 21, 2018
Its is not the fish per se, but what it represents – another sell-out of a principle. We do not eat much fish these days – it is dearer than fillet steak thanks to this fishing policy sending most of abroad and re-importing it.
We are not leaving. In 2021 another way to delay will be found. By then they hope and probably rightly, that the fire of leaving will have gone out and the British will be so fed up with it all that they just won’t care anymore.
Our only hope as Brexiteers is that if it happens we can take it out on the Tories in 2022, but that’s not much consolation.
We need to leave March 2019 or it is finished (and so are we as a nation).
March 21, 2018
@graham1946; “We need to leave March 2019 or it is finished (and so are we as a nation).”
Well that is what more or less was said back in 1975, and again by some in 1983…
March 21, 2018
Dear Graham–Very much agreed–It has always been obvious that the Remainiacs’ best hope is that by the kind of dates, in what’s called the future, that one reads about (which have never made any sense to me) they will be able to say, That was then, this is now. We should have grasped the nettle and left already instead of allowing ourselves to be jerked around by the usual nobodies in the EU. As I have said before, despite the danger I can’t help beginning to see Heseltine’s “logic” in risking a period of Corbyn but, instead of what he wants, for the Joy of brooming the pusillanimous May and Hammond combo.
March 21, 2018
There is an element of truth in this. The fishing industry employs 10,000 people, when we joined the EEC it employed 17,000. But 20 years earlier the number was 40,000 apparently. It would be good to ‘take back control’ of fishing, but elevating such a tiny industry in the way that is happening now isn’t rational. What matters is the long term deal, what happens for another two years is irrelevant.
The humbug of the SNP on this is absurd. They were in favour of remaining in the EU and therefore being indefinitely under EU control for fishing!
March 21, 2018
Our fish according to Fishing for Leave would support an industry worth £6.3B to the economy. However, the earnings of the fishermen will be spent mainly in the local economy so the cash will circulate there and create even more wealth.
In the FT, ” SoftBank flags eventual relisting of Arm Holdings. An IPO is one option under consideration as an exit strategy for $93bn Vision Fund.”
All our industries are open to predation under the Tories; what will the City do when there is nothing left to flog off?
March 21, 2018
@forthurst; “Our fish according to Fishing for Leave would support an industry worth £6.3B to the economy.”
Of course they are going to say that, aren’t they, no different from the hype that told us all that the C5 Tricycle was the future…
March 21, 2018
Fish is not merely an industry. It is a finite natural resource that is being severely damaged by EU policies. Allowing this resource to become even more plundered by the EU – UK will have no say – will inflict lasting damage on UK well into the future. It is a major asset unequalled in the EU. In terms of the negotiations it is a major point of leverage UK could have used.
You seem to be unaware of international law as agreed in the UNCLOS. You should read it. It is perfectly clear the EU has no legal basis for its claim and UK has no legal obligation to do more than grant access to its surplus, ONLY the surplus. Article 62. So UKG has given away what the EU had no legal right even to demand.
It is not as if UK gained anything by doing so. It did not. WE are told we gained the freedom to sign trade deals. Excuse me but after March 2019 that is UK’s legal right and does not require the permission of the EU. So that is not a gain, merely the status quo.
March 21, 2018
if its so unimportant why are the countries that fish our waters complaining “its not fair” if they cant fish our waters.
March 21, 2018
@jc; Very few fish within 12 miles of our chore line!
March 21, 2018
The fishing industry wasn’t losing money, unlike the shed loads the likes of coal and steel were. The fishing industry got decimated by a political decision made by Ted Heath, as such its only right that we correct it.
March 21, 2018
@Iain Moore; Nonsense, otherwise why were so many UK fishing boats laid-up or scrapped even before we joined the EEC, using the figures given by @Richard1 (and I have no reason to doubt them, the first “Cod War” began in 1958 after all) some 23,000 fishing boats/trawlers were lost to the industry before 1973. Even if those figures are wrong by half that is still a lot of boats or trawlers to loose, if they are totally wrong then cite the correct figures rather than just have a rant at Ted Heath et al.
March 21, 2018
The EU will destroy the UK fishing industry during the transition period.
Once the UK cannot fish its own fish stocks, then under international law UK fish is open for others to catch.
A government minister has told EU fishermen (the Danish) that they have nothing to worry about because the UK cannot catch its own fish so they are going to be needed. This was thought to be a reference to the UK imposing its own quota system. This week we see it is actually the intention of the UK government to leave control to the EU.
This is shocking behaviour. Double talk, and duplicitous.
The media has done a great job of spinning this transitional deal framework, but the truth is clear, its a grubby capitulation and a national humiliation.
March 21, 2018
@VotedOut
Yes, the “implementation period” will be utilized to implement rules that finish off what’s left of the British fishing industry.
It was clear that the Tories would fudge Brexit. Tory Brexiteers are kidding themselves that it’s just a delay, it’s not, it’s another Tory U-turn, which is why the remainers are supporting it.
March 21, 2018
There will be a new UK fishing industry, partially owned by foreigners, unless Uk fishing firms raise the funds to buy/build efficient ships, shore facilities and recruit skilled crews. It appears that British fishing managers and investors have not considered the opportunity compelling enough to invest in sufficient capacity to exploit the opportunities in UK waters. Why would that change after brexit? Onbly if prices rise enough to for acceptable returns. Is that good for consumers? Not really, so we are dealing with a case of protectionism, promoted by fake free traders.
March 21, 2018
Unambiguous and direct, JR. There is no reason at all for further delay. The ‘implementation period’ is simply a fudge to gloss over our continued membership. I doubt that your advice will be heeded. We need, above all, a decisive and resolute PM, intent on furthering Britain’s interests, and to see Brexit to a satisfactory conclusion.
March 21, 2018
‘Decisive and resolute PM.’
Never been one on the Tory side since Mrs. T. All second rater leaders elected by the ‘fewest to be upset’ principle rather than any talent.
March 21, 2018
There have been two in my recollection Graham. Michael Howard and IDS were worthy leaders but the parliamentary Conservative party was (and still is) infused with remainers who surreptitiously plotted against them and did whatever they could to put one of their own kind in their place. However, the remainers seemed totally oblivious to what had gone before. Once found out, that nice pro-EU mister Major proved so objectionable to the electorate, he almost got the Tories wiped out.
The writing was on the wall even then and any leader thereafter would be starting way back on the grid. What is now needed is a Tory leader who can attract support, not repel people like the present incumbent. They have an ideal opportunity to get the right leader right now, but they just can’t see it. Alas, one cannot teach anything to those who do not have the capacity to learn. The Tories as they presently exist are thus beyond redemption.
Tad
March 21, 2018
Howard and IDS may have been ‘worthy’ although they didn’t achieve anything. IDS did better as a minister. If they had been ‘decisive and resolute’ they would have succeeded.
March 21, 2018
Indeed they were all dire pro EU, big state, interventionist socialists – Heath, Major, Cameron and now the electoral disaster T May. Even Mrs Thatcher made huge errors over the EU, the ERM, allowing J Major to become Chancellor (or anything at all), the failure to cut the state back properly, on killing many good Grammar schools, on the Single European Act, education policy, on the poll tax (which was always going to be a political disaster regardless of its merits).
March 21, 2018
Faux outrage. You elected a leader whose sympathies, you knew lay with the EU and the civil servants that control her so let me guess whose fault it is? Ah yes, that would be Tory MPs.
March 21, 2018
Exactly – all those idiot Tory Eurosceptics had a choice between remainer May and leave Leadsome – and who did they choose? They only have themselves to blame for the shambles we are now in. Remainer May has capitulated on virtually every red line and EU demand – they say jump and she says “how high? She doesn’t have the backbone or the stomach to be tough. Davis neither. They need to be replaced and take arch remainer traitor Hammond with them.
March 21, 2018
As I recall there was no vote. Ms Leadsome pulled out.
We could blame those who voted for Mrs May in the first rounds or indeed those who did not stand but they all knew full well that the Conservative Parliamentary party is not a majority Eurosceptic gathering.
March 21, 2018
I agree completely, JoolsB. What is beyond belief is that the Eurosceptic MPs did not apparently see this coming. However, the public did.
March 21, 2018
Gove was mainly to blame here for knifing Boris and costing me my Boris wager too!
March 21, 2018
I thought Leadsome put her foot in her mouth over ability or otherwise to bear children and was forced to withdraw from the competition, effectively leaving May as the only candidate. In effect, nobody voted for her to be PM.
Which probably says everything.
March 25, 2018
If Mrs Leadsom hadn’t been bullied out over that it would have been something else. The big money and the big wigs were determined to have Mrs May and to hell with the membership. If you followed the blogs at that time, conservative PArty members were all saying “Anyone but May.” This must have been noticed. No conspiracy needed. It just came naturally.
March 21, 2018
It’s not an implementation period, it’s just a way of delaying Brexit. At the end of it when there is nothing agreed to put in its place it will simply be extended further. Fox needs to immediately start signing trade agreements with other countries as a way of making the extension of the status quo at the end of the period more difficult.
March 21, 2018
How can we sign trade deals when we cannot quantify what duty rates we are offering ?
March 21, 2018
Fox will not have any competitive edge over the EU hence regulatory alignment. if you were another country and witness this extraordinary capitulation you would take the UK to the cleaners.
March 21, 2018
It does seem that the Govt has forgotten “No deal …” and also its responsibility for national security. Extremely stated, the option the Govt seems to be pursuing is,
Continued occupation of (fishing) waters,
Invitation for UK to be colonised,
Potential for NI to be annexed.
March 21, 2018
Absolutely. Let’s get out of the eu and stop the rot
March 21, 2018
The so called “deal” will turn the British into rule takers, which is precisely what motivated people to vote leave in the first place.
March 21, 2018
John, I did expect betrayal but this so called deal is on an unprecedented scale. I have no words to convey my bitter disapointment and anger.
March 21, 2018
I think you speak for many of us BOF. I feel bitterly let down by a party that I have always supported and believed in (despite my faith being shaken now and then) but, sad to say, if another party popped up (or whatever new parties do) that embodied what I used to believe the Conservatives stood for – I’d change my allegiance.
And that DOES make me sad.
March 21, 2018
PS Having said that, I have no faith in civil servants being impartial enough to support any new government as they should. We all know the country is more or less run by them, with MPs as useful idiots sometimes, but at this point in our history they seem to be flexing their muscles to our country’s detriment.
March 21, 2018
You sum it up very well.
It seems to me that the call for a transition period and the late appearance of the Irish border issue are part of a Remainers’ cunning plan to lock the UK into vassal state status. I hear this morning that there is a call from the HoC Security committee to extend the transition period still further!
As it now reads, this is a very bad deal.
March 21, 2018
Yesterday we were told of yet more delay in taking back control of our borders.
There are early signs the EU is unwilling to make a deal on financial services.
So that’s money, borders, how are laws doing?
March 21, 2018
Whilst I agree with you John, unfortunately we are being led by a collective who have no confidence in our future, in our businesses, our people, or even themselves.
I am absolutely disgusted at the lack of vision and fight in our government.
We no longer have the spirit of the lion of old, but that of a politically correct pussycat that has had its claws pulled.
Rest assured it looks at the moment, like much more surrender to all things EU is on the cards.
Who would have thought we were the fifth largest trading Nation on this earth.
No disrespect to Iceland, but they have shown more spirit recently than our lot.
God help us if there was another Falklands conflict. (Gibraltar)
Mrs May clearly does not have a clue what a bad deal is, that is why she will never walk away.
So, so sad that a great opportunity for the UK is just being wasted away, and the majority of our politicians of all colours, are still absolutely blind to it.
March 21, 2018
That is how I feel. The opportunity, not just for the UK but for the developing world, is one that will be lost. The UK could be a low tax, low tariff economy. People from all around the world could look to us and our eventual success.
March 21, 2018
The government will get nothing in return. That is obvious from the “negotiations “ so far. And it is your fault. When will you admit you misled the British people with your claims that they need us more than we need them?
March 21, 2018
They do.
We do not have to trade with the EU at all. We could just trade with the rest of the World and supply our own needs more – if the EU really want to be silly.
March 21, 2018
They do need us more than we need them. And this government is going to give us to them for nothing.
March 21, 2018
I am struggling to comprehend why the UK negotiating team has capitulated.
Aside from minority but vocal opinion we want out and have a strong position to defend with our trading deficit.
There seems little reason not to be intransigent and belligerent in the face of similar from the EU.
Hugely disappointing.
March 21, 2018
If you really want Brexit, you will need to vote for it, not in a referendum but in a General Election.
Did you ever expect Brexit to be implemented by a party who while in government campaigned to remain? The very idea is risible.
March 21, 2018
I read the referendum was a more convincing two thirds for Leave on a traditional constituency UK voting basis.
As for Brexit means Brexit. I seem to remember the previous PM said he would invoke Article 50 the day after if the result was Leave. Accordingly we should be OUT in a couple of months. So much for so called democracy.
At the conclusion of the referendum back in June 2016 Mr Dimbleby declared on TV “We’re out”. That was nearly two years ago and how many more being added to go along with more of our valuable resources and for what with no MEP’s .
Perhaps we ought to demand MEP representation under ‘Pay and obey’ until we have a clean Brexit.
March 21, 2018
I hold the entire Parliamentary cohort culpable not just the Conservatives.
Siren voices from dissenters has weakened strong negotiating positions.
March 21, 2018
All very true ! But not just GE’s but all elections.
March 21, 2018
Hammond is controlled by his big business and liberal elite cronies, the CBI etc, the same ones who also have the ear of the Brussels Commissariat. It is they who are running negotiations, not our poor benighted cabinet.
March 21, 2018
How to convince the cabinet to pull completely out of the EU on leave day, I have no idea. It must be done to avoid the impending treachery.
March 21, 2018
Mrs May appears to have reaffirmed a vague commitment to remain indefinitely in the single market and the customs union (‘regulatory alignment’) in the event there isn’t an alternative acceptable solution to the Irish border (non-issue). Obviously the Irish govt and the EU will keep saying that any solution proposed by the U.K. isn’t acceptable and therefore by default we will end up as a vassal state. It would be better just to cancel Brexit and remain in the EU.
March 21, 2018
Richard, I long ago came round to this view. I voted LEAVE because Mr Redwood and others promised (a) the Eu would give us a great deal, and quickly, (b) that the US, canada, India etc would give us a great deal, and quickly, (c) that money would go straight to the NHS, (d) that immigration would be controlled. None of this has happened. None! I agree – Brexit has been tested, shown to be a failure. Let us move on
March 21, 2018
Sadly Harry, you won’t get to read my last two days posts which explained why we are where we are. The ERG 62 group of euro-sceptic MPs, know the game is near up. They will shortly be looking for lifeboats to take them back to Mother Theresa May’s confessional at CCHQ. “Mother Theresa, I have sinned; please don’t have me deselected for 2022”. (You probably won’t get to read this one either; bugga!)
BTW. Does Rees-Mogg have a problem with the smell of fish; or, is he frightened of boats.
March 21, 2018
“It would be better just to cancel Brexit and remain in the EU.”
That is what it’s all about.
March 21, 2018
It also happens to be true. It is now 100% evident that by whatever measure you choose Brexit is worse than what we have now.
The EU is not – and never has been – perfect. But on every single issue it is completely clear that Brexit is worse.
March 23, 2018
Exactly…nothing has been gained other than that which a quick exit using WTO would have given us anyway and the recent 23 diplomat exchange, highlights the strength of your comment re us having far more EU citizens to take rights from or remove were the EU to start treating UK citizens badly. British taxpayers would also be £40 billion +++ billions more better off, when other factors as well as the so called Brexit bill are added up.
Amounts we can add being the large EU overall tariff payment owed to us from the EU under WTO rules, us keeping all trade tariffs from the rest of the World and VAT amounts which are now sent to Brussels, no payment of EU pensions we are not liable for, ceasing membership fees sooner and the costs of providing for EU citizens healthcare and other benefits which are often not reciprocated by other EU benefit systems and many more…
Plus all that fish which is estimated as a £6.3 billion industry when (if?) we take back our 200 mile limits and which has other benefits also, such as helping coastal towns, our boat building industry and defence jobs protecting it .
I also wonder if the EU will fit all they can into the period we are paying for, for instance I notice online that they are about to pay Turkey £billions more soon will we have to contribute like last time?
Also as EU staff have had deductions taken from their pay for their pensions, amounts changing over the 40 odd years but shown in staff terms and conditions of employment online at around 9/10% of salary, have we even asked for the return of these amounts plus interest or investment income if we are to voluntarily pay them?
March 23, 2018
(sorry the above was meant to be a reply to another comment but the points still stand, it wouldn’t go the other day and remained in my comment box.)
My reply to Dennis Cooper is…It also seems that just in case the ‘being worse’ plan doesn’t work, it appears that as Plan B she is setting us up for a war of sorts. In which case greater food self sufficiency from all those hundreds of tons of fish, will be even more necessary.
March 21, 2018
Y or last sentence. In a nutshell, just the thing I said in my post above. This will become the position of the majority once worn down sufficiently.
March 21, 2018
I very much doubt if the majority are in favour of all taxes going directly to Brussels, their children eventually being drafted into the euro army and above all, the abolition of the pound for the euro. We have moved on – the status quo is not on the table now. The EU is heading for full economic and political union. I do not believe the British people want it.
March 21, 2018
You cannot cancel BREXIT. All you can do is re-apply to join the EU. Of course, we would lose our opt-out on the EURO and would have to join.
Germany and France will be pleased with that as they will get us to pay the lions share of the EU (PIIGS) debt.
March 21, 2018
“There are two things the government has promised that I agree with
Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.
No Deal is better than a bad deal.”
You are hanging on to the above like a drowning man clutches at straws. Do you mean promises from the government like the 9 million pound scaremongering propaganda sheet that promised that they would implement whatever we decided? Or the “promise” to reduce immigration to the tens of thousands.
I have the utmost respect for you Sir, and because of this I do not believe that you truly believe that these promises will be kept any more than the others. Time to get those letters in.
I hear that the discarding of fish will not happen next year. The way it will run now is that once we have reached our lowest quota, it will be illegal to land more fish of that species and illegal to discard them. To avoid fines of hundreds of thousands of pounds these boats will have to remain tied up to avoid accidental catches. This whole thing stinks more than the discarded fish ever could. It is a complete disgrace.
March 21, 2018
It would be nice to think we would start eating Hake , but it will be part of a growing export industry. What our team have agreed is in reality an act of faith, which the EU may see as weakness. If so they should experience our hard edge in negotiation. I would ask the following on fishing.
1. Do we have a programme for sustainability in the waters we will take back.
2. Do we have a programme to build fishing boats
3. Do we have a training programme for all the extra fishermen required.
4. Do we have a programme for building fishery protection vessels and sufficient Royal Navy personnel to man them.
5. Do we plan to create a squadron of twin engine aircraft for fishing and border surveillance. These could be bought off the shelf equipped with long range tanks and suitable radar.
I suspect that it has not been given a thought in Westminster where fish is only encountered at Waitrose. It needs action now to avoid chaos in 2021.
March 21, 2018
Think solutions and not problems, agricola. If and when we finally gain control of our fishing grounds there will be a large number of foreign fishing boats without work which, with crews and supervision, could be contracted to us to carry out our wishes.
March 21, 2018
From problems come solutions. We have certainly licenced EU trawlers in the past. Contracting them to catch our fish under our rules and landing them in our ports maybe is a short term measure, but I would prefer to see our fishermen catching our fish. It is not as if the UK is taking the whole of the North Sea. We only have to the mid point between the UK and any bordering North Sea country or Irish sea country. 200 miles is probably only possible off the Scottish coast. All the facilities I list will be required.
March 21, 2018
Totally agree with your response and my post was to point out that there are short term solutions to the problems as there will be in other areas where we have hardly had to think for ourselves for more than 40 years.
March 21, 2018
Hake is usually available in Tesco. I had a lovely bit of smoked loin last night. So is skate, mackerel, bass, sea bream, Scottish mussels (which are the best) and prawns, crab, and other seafood. A lot could be consumed at home from our own seas and processed here.
I have a feeling that the recent drop in lifespan, unique to the UK in Europe, may be due to 52% of the population losing the will to live after watching our gutless PM conducting her Brino.
March 21, 2018
#
I can certainly agree with those points – but is the government listening? I think not.
I find it hard to believe that the few ‘Leavers’ in the cabinet could actually agree to the terms, so far – Looks like they are being out-voted and out-maneuvered by the remainers….
March 21, 2018
Come the next general election the actions of this government will bite them hard, they may be thinking that many will continue to vote for the best of the worst but this betrayal will tip many over the edge.
Expect a serious change as voters remember being sold down the river.
March 21, 2018
John
the uncertainty for business was the fact that no frame work was in place at this stage, which is why it was important to ahve the extra 22 months to prepare for the new environment.
Cutting this back after it has now been agreed, is what would create uncertainty and with your past business experience you should know this as well?
Reply An extra 21 months delay prolongs uncertainty unless and until there is an Agreement about what we are in transit to.
March 21, 2018
Reply to reply
The fact that this has been negotiated in this a8se about face way tells you all you need to know about the negotiators’ intentions.
March 21, 2018
Even if there is an agreement to transit too, the implementation period is agreed to be the status quo. That means on 31st December 2020 we face the so called cliff edge.
What is the difference if we have the cliff edge in March 2019.
March 22, 2018
And as we face that December 2020 “cliff edge” of course there will be calls for a further period of transition during which nothing will change.
March 21, 2018
Exactly right Mr Redwood which is why the EU have dragged their feet. So your Government will pay the ransom money (£100 billion) and then they will inform you that they cannot reach a deal with you and it will have to be extended ad infinitum at more costs and all the “rules” will remain with the EU’s aquis.
March 21, 2018
Is anybody listening to those of us who want to leave the EU
March 21, 2018
JR is, & consistently acts to secure the best quality outcome for us all.
March 21, 2018
We are being strung along, so that by March 2019 the EU will have got all that it wants , we on the other hand won’t , and will find we are obligated to give the EU loads of money, fishing access, immigrants rights, etc, and find we have been shorn of all leverage. You wonder if the people ‘negotiating’ on behalf of ourselves are on our side. Our ‘negotiators’ allowed the EU to separate the divorce bill from trade , that cost us dear. They allowed the EU to latch on to the transition request, and again park our need to get on with trade talks., which has again meant we have conceded far too much. At every hurdle the EU has placed in our way our we have rolled over , and our ‘negotiators’ have allowed the EU to place further obstructions in the way of Brexit.
I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised the way things are turning out, after all the same organisation tasked with negotiating our exit from the EU, the Civil Service , is the same organisation which so disastrously negotiated our entanglement with the EU.
March 21, 2018
Iain,
Yes, well put. Total capitulation is on the cards accompanied by all sorts of desperate spin in the mainstream media.
March 21, 2018
Uncertainty is inevitable because people did not know what they were voting for.
The referendum was not a vote for anything.
It was a vote against something.
You have all expressed, very clearly, what you are against.
Now you actually have to work out what you are for – you are demonstrably struggling.
Faced with the hard choices that always have to be made all we get from Brexiteers is rants.
Brexiteers portrayed the world as black or white.
It is actually a shade of grey.
Let us know when you finally all figure this out so the rest of us can start clearing up the monumental damage you have all done to our country.
Reply We made a positive vote to take back control of our money, our borders and our laws.
March 21, 2018
Reply to reply:
I also thought that we voted to take back control of our waters too, one of our greatest national assets. Is it significant that you omitted this?
March 21, 2018
Fishermen are being fed a line.
There is no reason why we can’t take back control of our waters on March 29 2019 regardless of tacit but un-democratically mandated “agreements” made by the government contrary to the will of the people. Otherwise, what’s the point of the article 50 notice? What was the point of a referendum?
March 21, 2018
Davis’s explanation was just lies about this years allocation going past out leaving date, that could have been changed! If not, why not. He capitulated on EVERYTHING else!
March 21, 2018
“Uncertainty is inevitable because people did not know what they were voting for.”
You should perhaps talk to people who voted to leave a little more. Remainers always assert that people didn’t know what they voted for. It is always Leave voters who are called stupid, but I have yet to meet one who didn’t.
It seems to me that it is only Remain voters that were perhaps a bit challenged as it seems few of them knew what they were voting for nor could read a sentence writ large on the side of a big red bus.
March 21, 2018
MickN
I would call your answer a very intellectual response with real great depth.
thank you
March 21, 2018
There may well be 50 shades of grey but, as a famous lady once said “Brexit means Brexit”. Where is she now ?
March 21, 2018
As usual, a Remainer claim that Leave voters didn’t know what they were voting for. Of course according to them we were voting for 500,000 job losses in the year immediately following the vote. Still waiting ……
March 21, 2018
No, chum, the EU is too dark a shade of grey for the majority who voted to leave.
March 21, 2018
You seem not to have noticed that the Government is led by and dominated by Remainers who do not want Brexit. Brexiteers know exactly what they voted for. We are not getting it because we are being blocked by the Government which listens too much to Remoaners, a more friendly voice.
March 21, 2018
Andy thinks all remainers knew what they voted for yet all leavers did not.
Really odd logic.
March 21, 2018
Well, from everything I have seen and heard to date things are going as I have suspected with respect to Brexit. We are being sold out once again by those we elect to represent our wishes. There is no way that we will be getting a good deal from the perspective of those of us who voted leave. Trade is being used as it was when we joined to justify being tied into the EU. We do not have full sovereignty if the EU has any jurisdiction over any part of the UK and any trade deal certainly will not be free if we have to pay so much as one cent into the EU coffers.
March 21, 2018
So the UK gave up and Brexit is not really going to happen, is it? Perhaps it was too much to hope for democracy to prevail when safeguarded by a Remainer.
March 21, 2018
There is something very dubious even sinister about having a transition period that sets conditions that are totally inflexible especially if it is one sided. The UK has no recourse to alter those conditions even if practicalities or a change in circumstances dictate that there should be. In fact having a transition period at all is curious except as a means of allowing for adjustments of protocols and adjustment to new procedures. Although even those should be alterabale in the light of experience and changed in the normal course of events.
There is also no point in having a transition period as described if not all matters have been agreed. As that is the most likely outcome considering the manner and objectives that the EU have insisted upon for the current round of negotiations. They have made completing a comprehensive and all encompassing agreement impossible so actually nothing can be agreed. I suspect to be able to extract as many concessions from the UK as they can which they anticipate to be considerable and to keep the UK contribution flowing into their coffers. Even in expectation that if they can hang it out and be intransigent long enough can stop Brexit. Under the circumstances the UK would be better off leaving having agreed on those items that are possible(although how that happens if nothing is agreed until everything is agreed is difficult to comprehend although with a change of stance possible) given the terms for negotiation that the EU has set. Those terms are of course not conducive to reaching any far reaching substantive agreement as is so obviously their desire. Negotiations can continue or not after leaving if the desire to do so is either agreed beforehand or it can be seen that there is an advantage to both parties that they should be continued or restarted. I suspect the EU will find out that indeed they would be foolish not to want to and in fact would be far more prepared to be the ones to grant concessions to do so.
March 21, 2018
Dear John,
If you feel that strongly about the capitulation over British waters and fishing rights and the plight of the British Fishing Industry, why did you not sign this week’s letter to the Prime Minister about the issue, sent/signed by Ross Thompson MP, Sir David Amess MP, Sir Henry Bellingham MP, Colin Clark MP, Steve Double MP, Richard Drax MP, Alister Jack MP, Bernard Jenkin MP, Craig Mackinlay MP, Sheryl Murray MP, Derek Thomas MP, Martin Vickers MP, Rt. Hon. Sammy Wilson MP and Jacob Rees-Mogg MP?
Disappointing to see only 14 MPs out of 650 sign this letter.
There appears a lack of a real stand in Parliament for the principle of leaving the EU, and the fight to extract ourselves from the EU seems a bit half-hearted.
Far better coordination with others who want a strong clean Brexit would be greatly appreciated from those in and around Westminster.
Reply Because it was decided that fishing constituency MPs would send it. The govt knows I support it!
March 21, 2018
Will we ever leave ?
Will the transition be further extended because we are not ready?
The BBC think, this morning ,that security will take much longer than thought.But this is ‘not an anti Brexit view ‘ !
The government will not leave early next year as we are boxed in over Ireland and TM has said we are going to get a fantastic deal with the EU , well she is extremely confident of doing so !
Meanwhile my confidence in the negotiations and the team has been much diminished.
March 21, 2018
I would simply repeat what I said yesterday:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/03/20/uk-energy/#comment-925967
about the clear statements about an “implementation period” that Theresa May made in her original Lancaster House speech of January 17th 2017:
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-governments-negotiating-objectives-for-exiting-the-eu-pm-speech
when it was to be a phased transition, a carefully calibrated process of change spread over a whatever period was necessary to avoid disruption, not an absurd oxymoronic “status quo” transition during which nothing at all would change.
And:
“For each issue, the time we need to phase-in the new arrangements may differ. Some might be introduced very quickly, some might take longer.”
There is absolutely no reason why the UK should not resume full control of its waters on the day we leave the EU. That would not mean the instant expulsion of all foreign fishing boats, rather new arrangements could be phased in over a fair period, but it would mean that the UK and not the EU would have control from that date.
March 21, 2018
The ‘nothing is agreed…’ statement is looking likely to have been meaningless and deceitful all along and naive to have beieved in it. So many concessions have been made by our EU appeasing PM that the idea she will at some point say ‘I don’t like THAT so the deal is off’ is surely ridiculous. She ought to have known the fish issue was important and to let it go so far shows how little she cares about us.
What are you going to DO now Mr Redwood? Do you support the letter signed by Mr Rees-Mogg and others? Will you help force Mrs May to make this the THAT issue?
Is it going to happen or will be labelled as one who in the end let us be sold out?
Reply Yes of course I support the fish campaign and have made my view clear to HMg
March 21, 2018
Sadly the UK government has been outmanouevered by the EU at every stage. This may have been deliberate given the anti-Brexit sentiment in the highest levels of the civil service and MPs who voted to allow a referendum but, in typical EU fashion, baulk at implementing the result if not what they wanted. So much time wasted, so many “red lines” breached, surrendered and meaningless before discussion of the main issue of the future relationship has even started. We have given Mrs May, who was a Remainer, the benefit of the doubt but as normal in such circumstances aseen that trust thrown back in our faces. Three weeks ago she told Parliament “No UK PM Could Accept EU Draft Text on Northern Ireland” and yet we are told it is in the transition deal. What happened?
If trade talks are to start we need a completely different negotiating team to the appeasers who have represented us so far, including David Davis.
Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed seems to be the best hope, except that the government will have agreed to something detrimental to us even in such circumstances.
March 21, 2018
A sprat to catch a mackrel?
The only positive that one can hope for as a result of this gratuitous genuflection to the EU
is that JR’s two principles remain paramount.
Could it be that the PERCEIVED weakness of HMG stance is designed to keep the ball rolling for the end game negotiation whereby a beneficial deal for financial ( and other) services will indeed be secured.
No doubt, there may be more pain on offer to our fisherman.
March 21, 2018
Spot on, the time is coming when Leaver Conservative MPs should become independents and ideally collectively resign their seats and fight bye elections. They have achieved nothing in Parliament to deliver the will of the 17.4 million voters. I was disappointed that there wasn’t a strong defection to UKIP at its peak. That was the only true Leaver Party and but for it there would have been no referendum. Dave only manifested one to avoid a Conservative defeat. What goes around comes around.
March 21, 2018
Remainers may be smiling, but a lot more people than them are getting angry.
March 21, 2018
DEFEATED UK IN BREXIT TALKS
Unelected EU Council President Tusk © EU Council
(UNELECTED) PRESIDENT TUSK CONFIRMS UK SURRENDER IN LETTER TO EU27 LEADERS
In a shocking but not unexpected confirmation yesterday, EU Council President Tusk wrote to all EU27 leaders to confirm Prime Minister May’s complete capitulation in the Brexit negotiations.
EU’S “UK SURRENDER CONFIRMATION LETTER”
“We have achieved success when it comes to citizens’ rights and the financial settlement”
the rights of our citizens … the number one priority for the EU. And we have made it”
“citizens will be fully protected from the consequences of Brexit”
“This is good news for all Europeans”
“Prime Minister May … accepts all options agreed in December to be on the negotiating table”
“Including the option of full regulatory alignment between Ireland and Northern Ireland”
If this is true John, why don’t you all resign in protest, as nothing else that has been said or done has made an iota of difference to this shameful outcome! There is simply no reason to vote in future…as we can all see the Establishment will their way regardless of the democratic vote of the people!
Your Government has made the UK a laughing stock worldwide! The Conservative capitulation party will be toast!
Remainers are having the last laugh. However, the only solace I have is that they will suffer the consequences equally!
March 21, 2018
Surely during a transition or implementation period, EU involvement should be steadily decreased from the level today to zero at the end of the period; not just used as an excuse for another year or so’s involvement. So, that by half way through the transition period, the EU’s fish quota from our waters should be halved and our’s increased accordingly.
The same with all the other EU involvement.
March 21, 2018
What is the point in JR saying to us that government should tell EU that we will take back control of our fisheries on 30th march 2019- when we have government party politicians in situ in the HoC not a million miles from the decision makers in government who could do just that but are obviously not trying hard enough and are getting nowhere with it.
All of these slogans used by JR here again can also be used by the other EU side when it suits them and are just that- slogans
Nothing is agreed.. etc….
No deal is better than a bad deal
Well we should know by now that there are those in Europe who would very much like to see the back of us- out with no deal- just in case anyone here is under any misconception.. that there is no such thing as a free lunch at this level..ie. Fish for Access
Consider this.. we voted to leave and on the face of it it should have been a straight forward enough thing to do but is becoming apparently clear that it is not going to be as simple a thing to do as we were led to believe, big problem is, and also the truth of the matter- we were horribly lied to by rightwing tory sloganeering and UKIP downright lies.
There are no new international trade deals out there waiting for us that could in anyway compensate for the loss of trade with EU countries or could in anyway make up for the huge upset and inconvenience to people and business by having to trade with other places far far away so we are forced to face up to some hard realities- that we need a trade deal with them- and we need them as much as they need us
So all of the old talk about taking back control, JR’s old mantra etc, is fast becoming what it is-
March 21, 2018
Grow some backbone for goodness sake!
Can’t you see the alternative?
Being run by a foreign power.
Your country being open to access by any and every non-English speaking EU citizen, but denying access to billions who are more talented (and speak English) from elsewhere.
Your level of taxes being dictated from overseas.
Your employment rights aligned to Franco-German standards, whatever these might be at the time.
Your farms, fisheries and manufacturing industry being further decimated.
Your currency, interest rates and standard of living being ordered by Germany.
There comes a time when you have to make a stand for what you believe, rather than wimp-out as you seem to be doing.
March 21, 2018
Sir Joe Soap
All very well and good…but who is going to take a hard stand on this sell-out? Not John et al, not the incumbent Government under T. May and certainly not the people of this country…
….so I ask again who is taking the stand…you, and if so how?….and please don’t say we have the vote! No offense meant to you personally, but this is all talk and there will be no real action taken from anyone, just slogans, metaphors, severe moaning and delusive gobbledygook from the usual suspects!
Nobody will be on the streets protesting…we are not the French, sadly. Everybody will just sit back, have a cup of tea and resign themselves to the inevitable Establishment stitch-up! Sad times ahead with this Government I fear!
March 21, 2018
I can see this government caving in, losing the next election. At that stage we will get hard line left or hard line right, which will just TAKE BACK CONTROL. No ifs, no buts and no pandering to EU sensitivities. People in the UK will see this is the only way to avoid being run from overseas with no say. We will then be making enemies of our EU neighbours by reneging on the recently, but un-democratically, agreed “deal” by this crowd.
EU negotiators need to beware – by pushing this government into acting against the democratically expressed will of UK voters they will be on the receiving end of far worse from the UK in 5 years’ time.
March 21, 2018
I felt that DD’s bluff cheerful exterior with smiles all round was not a bad way to conduct negotiations .
Now I find his demeanour intensely irritating and amateurish ; certainly compared to Barnier he is out of his depth .
March 21, 2018
I read that 14 Conservative MPs have written an uncompromising letter to the PM stating that the proposed fishing arrangements are “completely unacceptable”. Link here:
https://order-order.com/2018/03/21/mogg-13-mps-write-may-declaring-transition-deal-completely-unacceptable/#more-289801
I think this may be the first of several issues that will run and run as people work their way through 100+ pages of dense legal text. The devil, and the betrayal, is in the detail.
March 21, 2018
I don’t see our host’s name there, although the date in the letter should read 2019, not 2018. Perhaps Mr Redwood would like to add his support?
This issue alone, I think, means this is a bad deal, and worse than no deal.
March 21, 2018
There is no “betrayal”. All that is happening is that the Leave campaign’s promises of fairies (easy free trade deals with the world!), unicorns (350 million for the NHS!) and pixies (the exact same benefits of trade with the EU as we have now!) are being shown to be utterly unrealistic. Project Fear is being shown to be Project truth. Don’t blame Mrs May. Blame the Leavers who promised you fantasies – Gove, Johnson, Redwood, Mogg etc
March 21, 2018
What happened to the other 30 or so other members in Jacob’s ERG gang?
I am also puzzled by the shift from ‘purgatory’ to ‘unacceptable’.
March 21, 2018
Also a letter signed by 1.437,875 was handed in to number 10 on the 19th March laying out just what leavers voted for.Watch this space
March 21, 2018
I see that JR’s name is not there! Is he chickening out? I notice he has replied only to 2 posts after many posts which deserve a reply. Also he believes that proposals are only drafts – ha ha!
March 21, 2018
14 – is that the sum total of Tory Brexiteers? Why only coastal MP’s? What about the rest? Hiding behind the sofa hoping for a ministerial job? It is a matter of national principle, not parochial constituency concerns. What about other party Brexiteers? 14 is not going to do anything to persuade May – she need to stare defeat in the face. 14 will be countered by the treacherous Marxists in Labour and the SNP and of course the one Green.
March 21, 2018
We now see your Whips banned Tory MPs from demonstrating about your fishing humiliation. Just proves HMG in league with the EU. As Gove is demonstrating, job always outweighs principles.
March 21, 2018
Explains our host’s reluctance to sign the letter?
Reply No reluctance to sign. I have set out why i Want our fish back in 2019. It was decided that just MPs with fishing constituencies would sign
March 21, 2018
Reply to reply.
Ridiculous and half hearted. It will achieve nothing – perhaps there is the clue.
March 21, 2018
The first principle of any sensible politician is to prevent the economy tanking. If people believed May’s assertion that “no deal is better than a bad deal” and that results in the worst recession since the 1929/33 Great Depresssion when Britain’s world trade fell by 50% then the Tory party will never see office again.
March 21, 2018
Yes we’re doomed. I saw three magpies the other day. Also, two cats, both of them black, walking across the road. It’s obvious isn’t it.
March 21, 2018
There is a lot of talk about the punishment the Conservatives will get at the next election, which at the moment looks inevitable and well deserved.
BUT a Corbyn government would be a major disaster for the whole country which would also probably bankrupt it. Do the Conservative Remainers realise this? Do they care? What can be done?
Would a convincing threat to split the party (as in the Corn Laws) by forming a new party be believed? Would “true blues” and patriotic Labour supporters vote for it?
I can not see it happening. It would appear that “any agreement is better than no agreement” is the mantra of our government. To mix metaphors, “those who sow the wind will reap the whirlwind”
March 21, 2018
Stockholm syndrome. Mr Davis is nice to his captors but not to his electorate, ditto Hammond and May.
As an island nation, we can’t allow an unelected bureaucracy elsewhere -which the UK has rejected – to dictate what we can and can’t do within our territorial waters, even for one day. It’s completely unacceptable, and any party promising to reverse this stupid decision will win at the polls.
March 21, 2018
“Generous offer”. It does not appear that the UK is giving the EU anything it did not have before, while all of the Uk’s ecenomic benefits remain. The UK has a binary choice: leave cooperatively with a transition period on EU terms or leave in an uncooperative manner, become a third country in March 2019 and figure out how to deal with trade without EU support. The UK citizens have been misinformed by media etc while the government has not been candid about UK’s weak “negotiating” position. One does not negotiate with authorities, one complies.
March 21, 2018
‘Authorities’. Now there’s a word we did not expect to hear having fought two world wars to stop foreign ‘Authortity’ over our nation (and incidentally for most of free Europe as well). You have given the game away – the EU expects Authority over the UK. Confirmation that our Parliament is little more than a parish council.
Well done Rien. Maybe even the Andy’s and Newmanias of Remain will now see what is in store for the UK.
March 21, 2018
Agreed John.
March 21, 2018
Thank you again for standing up for us all. You and the handful of true Tory MPs. With you.
Recent events strongly indicate any final agreement whenever that comes, will be Brexit in name only.
As you say, everything that can be decided can be decided in short order. E.g. WTO, then FTA with friendly countries, forget the EU and sort our own borders. Decision made.
Instead, Mrs May is dooming the conservative party.
Time for 48 and more signatures. Let the membership decide.
March 21, 2018
I am extremely disappointed (although not surprised) by this “deal” to put it mildly. It is clear that no deal is a much superior option, which would actually force the EU to negotiate, because it would cut off their money as well as their trade preference and ability to export their unemployed to the UK. We have over a year to go, which is plenty of time.
Incidentally, I disagree profoundly with Hammond’s suggestions that we shouldn’t “waste” money on preparing for a no deal exit that would be stranded should we get a deal. It is essential spending to ensure that eventually we do get a decent deal – even if we have to wait until some time after we have left to get it. This now has to be the primary tactic.
March 21, 2018
Eating Hake is preferable to barrels and barrels of fudge! And once the remainers have succeeded in keeping us in the EU with the disastrous consequences thereof for our democracy and self-governance, their consumption of humble pie when it all goes pear-shaped will just about take the bloody biscuit!
Tad Davison
Cambridge
March 21, 2018
There was only 42 leave MPs in the HOC in 2015 which in my opinion has not grown by much, it was the voter’s job to make sure there was more and not to listen to party BS and the media, you only have yourself to blame, waiting around for a leader who is never coming, like I keep telling you, you deserve all you have coming to you, by the time they are finished they will wipe the english seed off the face of the earth, you only ever had one choice and that was to vote for independent MPs.
March 21, 2018
I am so angry about the giving away of our fish for another 21 months.
Gove said we asked the EU to concede on this and they refused. Of course they would refuse, if they knew that we would say ‘OK, we give in then’.
I have stood up for May and Davis but no more. This is a sacking offence and they must both go. JRM needs to be our new negotiator with the EU and with Boris as PM, if not yourself.
I suppose we have given our word now but if we have to continue with this hated and unwanted delay then our fishermen must be financially compensated and it must be made clear to the EU that any attempt to harm our industry, or our fish stocks, would result in our closing our waters to them.
March 21, 2018
Tory MPs who believed in Brexit have been duped by Theresa May and her team, or they have been completely dishonest with us. There is a war of attrition going on, which has been referred to above in the comments. Eventually we will be expected to accept that we will stay in the EU. All is apparently going to plan and the Remainers and pseudo Brexiters delighted.
March 21, 2018
When we voted to restore control of our own laws to our own Parliament, we all underestimated the resistance of our MPs to the idea of self-government. Resistance to the referendum decision they had so hypocritically pretended to enact and support. Resistance to planning Britain’s long-term future.
We thought in our innocence that MPs would be struck by the historic, creative opportunity of making our laws independently of Brussels, as we did for hundreds of years with signal success. Yet many – even most – of your colleagues seem to prefer passive rule-taking, their own comforts, and a cowardly status quo, rather than courageous action.
John: it might be worth reminding some of your fellow-MPs that they are dancing in the last-chance saloon. If they further conspire with the EU’s attempt to render Brexit meaningless, the HoC will be declaring its own irrelevance, for ever.
March 21, 2018
They know that we can do nothing much about it, and therein lies their power, mancunius.
March 21, 2018
Jacob Rees-Mogg – the new Tory backbench Eurosceptic in chief – demonstrated today that he couldn’t properly organise an event to throw some dead fish in a river.
Some think this man is leadership material.
March 21, 2018
It wasn’t his event to organise.
March 21, 2018
Surely every company, large or small that exports to, or imports from the EU has carefully and comprehensively studied the effect of WTO rules on its products. If they haven’t then they don’t deserve to survive. Plans must surely be under way for both the two scenarios – half out, and right out.
March 23, 2018
Many companies will surely find WTO easier than EU terms if they use it already for non EU countries, being able to use one system instead of two is hardly the threatened cliff edge.
We voted for “right out” and so companies should have been prepared and not even need another plan as Cameron told us, the Commons, all MPs who he asked to take note before voting and the House of Lords during the 15th June PMQ’s 2016 (Q14 about 36 minutes in) that we would leave in two years and arrange a trade deal with the EU separately later.
Cameron also said that we would move to WTO after the two years in a Sky debate and interview that can be found online by searching for a youtube video in which he also said we would “leave single market 28 times” (WTO comment is about 1.2 minutes in).
March 21, 2018
The Telegraph evening briefing email states:
“The Prime Minister can’t assume she has assuaged concerns yet, as 14 MPs, including Mr Rees-Mogg, have written her a letter warning that the “disastrous” impact of joining the European European Community “cannot be compounded by compromise”. They dismissed the transition deal as “ completely unacceptable” in light of what had been conceded on fishing, and warned that it would be “rejected by the House of Commons”. ”
Can you confirm, or otherwise, Mr Redwood, that you signed this letter to Theresa May, and if not, can you give us your reasons for your decision?
Reply I and many others told the government of our support for the letter. It was decided just fishing constituency MPs would sign this one.
March 22, 2018
Thank you, Dr Redwood, for your intervention in the Commons about the unacceptable “transition” deal as presented earlier this week, and for asking the government to tell the European Council so.
March 22, 2018
The implementation period is necessary only to get the best possible deal for Financial Services. The interests of the whole of the rest of country are being given a lower priority than the interests of the City of London.
Who knows what mischief the European Commission can get up to while the ECJ still holds power?
Scrap the implementation period.
March 22, 2018
Dear John,
Yesterday I was at an event in Canary Wharf where one of your Ministers was there being all sycophantic to this very impressive company.
I myself was very impressed and proud that this was another aspect of our financial industry was leading the world. However I couldnt help thinking about our fishermen and coastal communities. It isnt just about money, its about peoples lives. The opportunity to make an average salary and have a job in your community. Your Party doesnt understand this.
For me this a red line for Brexit. I live in the most marginal Tory seat in the country. I have voted Tory since 1987. That ends now! I’m done with your Party and I’ve told my local MP.
March 22, 2018
John,
Can I also mention that many of us on here knew the Tories would betray on Brexit. Its happening. Your loyalty to the Party over the Country has to now change. Theresa May has to go. We HAVE to have a real leader who believes in Brexit. Owain Patterson or Dominic Raab are two that spring to mind.
March 22, 2018
The CFP was one of the worst sell outs in the original Membership ‘Negotiations’ in 1970/72.
The North Sea fishing grounds are UK Crown assets. There was no need to have given them away to foreigners. We didn’t, for example give away the North Sea Rights to drill for oil.
I suppose being charitable to Ted Heath (let’s let by gones be by gones), the original six countries we joined in the EEC at the time didn’t have impossibly huge fishing fleets. But there’s no excuse for what’sh happened since, when 27 foreign countries now have a claim access, including ones with large fishing industries, whereas countries like Iceland outside the EU with a population smaller than Swansea, have a 200 mile exclusive limit!!
But although I’m a hundred per cent behind John Redwood’s comments in principle I don’t think we need to give the Scottish, and a few North of England Fishermen a monopoly on the benefit entire UK Sector of the North Sea.
Sure they need more than they have now and foreign access needs to be restricted further to allow stocks to recover. But the North Sea is a UK asset to exploited for the benefit of all of us. If that means selling some fishing licences or exchanging them for some other trade concessions, so be it.
I’m content to wait an extra 21 months before we get full control, especially as it will coincide with next round of fisheries discussions, and the end of the Brexit transition period.
After all we’ll have waited 47 years already and if the Remainers had had their way we’d never ever have regained control.
March 22, 2018
The EUBC News did not show the fishermen’s protest. They had 3 MPs discuss it. The Conservative, Ed somebody?, said the dumping of fish contravened EU regulations and trade was more important. A
Says it all doesn’t it. To think we used to vote for these shysters.
March 22, 2018
I have every faith that our fishing industry will revive . The moaners and pessimists harp on about the state of the fishing industry today , but that is what we are going to change.
As time goes on more people will eat less and less meat and consume healthier fish from our waters. It is part of the green outlook that many of us are trying to pursue (much to the disgust of the meat , fags, capital , bigoted self- adulation brigade) . It is happening, and what a healthier lot we will become. Fish = brain food , now that will be a bonus.