There was no slot for me to speak in the fishing debate yesterday in the Commons ,such was the understandable pressure from MPs for fishing seats to speak.
What I wanted to say included the following
- The government must not sacrifice our fish for the sake of some wider deal. The UK feels very strongly that we have been badly treated over fish from the original entry terms onwards. The Common Fishery Policy has been bad for our fish, bad for our fishing industry and bad for the marine environment.
- When we take back control we should greatly expand the amount our own fishing fleets can catch, and require most if not all of the fish from our fishing grounds to be landed in the UK. We need to build a bigger fish processing and retailing industry.
- The government should ban the ultra large predatory trawlers which damage the sea bed or the wider marine environment when scrambling to catch more fish, and attract too much bi catch as they do so.
- We should strengthen our offshore protection vessel fleet to enforce our fishing rules, protecting our marine environment and managing our fish stocks well.
- The new fishing policy should encourage a rapid expansion of our fishing fleets, with government help with the financing of suitable vessels and encouragement to the banks to lend for the purpose.
- The new fishing policy should be part of a wider policy initiative to encourage far greater food self sufficiency and fewer food miles.
September 2, 2020
Exactly – but I imagine out fishing industry will be sacrificed for the wider deal.
September 2, 2020
If that happens then Nigel Farage should select candidates to fight the next election in all fishing constituencies.
September 2, 2020
Dear Prime Minister
Please could I request that you ask the government in relation to Covid 19 āWHAT IS THE END GAMEā?
For the past 9 weeks the Office for National Statistics has been reporting that of the 9000 or so weekly deaths less than 2% is being caused by Covid 19; whereas over 10% is being caused by summer seasonal flu.
Is the government waiting for a vaccine, which may or may not come; and which is unlikely to be 100% effective? May we not just have to learn to live with this virus as we do with seasonal flu?
Many of us in back in March were suggesting a more nuanced approach along the lines of Sweden with social distancing and good hygiene ā and they have performed infinitely better than us with schools open and their economy not completely trashed.
Do you have any idea what the plan is and if so please could you share it with your constituents?
Yours sincerely
Stephen
Somebody who voted to Take Back Control
NOT have all control taken away from me.
September 2, 2020
Fishing is a tiny part of the UK economy, and employs a commensurate number.
However, like seeing a crowd sing Rule Britannia on the BBC, it is emblematic to the type of person who is susceptible to notions of belonging to a national tribe, and deluded about their present-day greatness – even if such an entity did exist, and if it did, whether they would be valued in the least by its leaders, both of which claims would be rather dubious, I think.
Meanwhile, material matters, like the education of our young, the survival prospects of businesses trading with the European Union, and our standards of living, are being thrown to the dogs
September 2, 2020
It is now – itās been āgiven awayā. We want the huge fishing industry back. And if itās so irrelevant, why are the EU so determined to have it?
September 2, 2020
Correct
September 2, 2020
How would you plan to get it back when much of that fishing industry used to catch its fish in what is now an Exclusive Economic Zone belonging to Iceland?
September 4, 2020
There is still a huge area available
September 2, 2020
Lynn
Yes, it was ‘given away’ by our own greedy fishermen who sold their quotas for a quick profit.
What are they going to do now? Commandeer Spanish fishing trawlers they sold their quotas to and demand it back?
September 2, 2020
See me response elsewhere to this disgraceful misrepresentation Margaret. We come to expect nothing else from you really.
September 3, 2020
We should take our time building up a sustainable fleet that remains a UK asset that can’t be sold off. The advantage of this is that the marine resources will improve and regenerate while they are rested from the EU hovering-based fishing techniques.
With that approach some French and Spanish boats may well become available, cheap.
September 2, 2020
āThe huge fishing industry backā: 0.1% of GDP, 12,000 jobs. And for the second question, more than 70% of fish caught in British waters end up on continental tables. Most of the fish eaten on these islands is imported.
Donāt you know these very simple (and available for at least twenty years) figures? Really?
September 3, 2020
How much of that 70% of fish is caught by continental boats which form by far the largest proportion of those taking fish from our waters?
Diets change.
Mine has changed over the last 10+ years to more veg and fish. Mostly we eat salmon, prawns, trout, bass, sardine, mackerel and sometimes cod/haddock. In the last month we have also had eel and squid.
We need to encourage more people on these islands to move towards a higher fish content diet
September 3, 2020
0.1% of GDP does sound small, but Ā£1.4 BILLION doesn’t. That’s the problem with statistics isn’t it. And the 24,000 jobs in the fishing industry, not 12,000, would be higher if the eu hadn’t decimated our home industry, as would the GDP.
September 2, 2020
Yet the EU feel it is very important even if you don’t Martin.
September 2, 2020
Edward2
So the Daily Mail keeps telling you. Doesn’t make many headlines in the European papers I read. In fact, complete disinterest.
September 3, 2020
No not the Daily Mail Margaret.
I read what the EU chiefs actually say.
Maybe you ought to as well.
It is a key negotiation point for Barnier and his team and has been for many months.
September 3, 2020
So why is Barnier stamping his feet and having tantrums demanding we give up our fishing rights as a sovereign nation.
September 2, 2020
Martin, No other maritime country is required by the EU to hand over its entire fishery resources in order to have a trade deal. Why should you support the EU’s obvious self-serving cherry-picking?
And why does resisting the EU’s high seas robbery have any bearing on the education of our young, or even the survival of businesses trading with the EU? Unless the EU is as vindictive as I suppose, and you deny. Though, admittedly, keeping our fish will improve our standard of living.
September 2, 2020
MiC,
Agriculture as a whole is only 0.6% of GDP. We do not use this as an argument to stop producing and to stop feeding people (the most basic material matter). Since people can be fed (at high efficiency i.e. low resource use, particularly labour resource), there is a tendency to value tat more highly, or indeed to support low income, labour-intense areas as a means to distribute income.
There are of course other huge concerns in what the Govt is/has done e.g. its recent policies to switch off tourism (worth about 20 times agriculture to the economy) in a far more dramatic way then Brexit ever could.
You are correct to be concerned about education; schools, colleges and HEIs should not have closed and exams should have run. Also, as I have mentioned previously, ‘we’ need to get to the bottom of why Indian and Chinese (declared ethnicity) pupils do so much better than all others even if from economically disadvantage backgrounds – there is learning for all other groups to be done here. Standards of living associated with increasing population to increase GDP but not GDP per capita is indeed an issue – China of course showed a route to constraining the growth of L compared with other resources, but many people in the UK do not buy into population control whether through controlling immigration or reproduction – K and entrepreneurship lag L. Driving the numerator requires efficient, interconnected, innovative cities (which tends to mean going vertical and rental) – again there is little buy in for this across parties.
September 2, 2020
The Rule Britannia decision was an act of spite against the British people who were smeared by BLM supporters over a killing which took place 4000 miles away and had nothing to do with them.
This on top of six months of lockdown.
September 2, 2020
Martin
You know full well that there is a Leftist revolt going on and the BBC is part of it.
They keep prodding and prodding and if you react you are accused of being petty. This was the point of banning the singing while other songs were allowed.
If you will insist on slapping an enfranchised population about then you can expect such things as Brexit, the fall of the Red Wall etc.
September 2, 2020
Agree – this goivernment would sell our british soul to get a deal,,,then tell the people its the best deal in history
September 2, 2020
Gilt coming off Boris in the polls. The Govt and more importantly, the House of Commons Becoming afraid of the electorate again. They should all have 9% engraved on their hearts and we will do that again, no problem.
September 3, 2020
With FPTP? In what cloud-cuckoo land do you live? TBP was successful in the European elections because of a more proportional voting system. Are you really unable to figure that out?
September 2, 2020
JR, you miss the central point to Brexit. Your points might be how you wish fishing policy to delevop. That is not a matter for the EU it is a matter for the U.K.! Why not ask other nations who want a trade deal how much of our territorial waters they wish to control. It is absurd and not negotiable.
The bigger issue is the U.K. Determines what happens in its territorial waters, that is taking control of borders and taking back sovereignty where the U.K. Determines the rules of fishing in our own territory not the EU.
Once the U.K. Determines what its needs are and what it wants then it can discuss if any neighbour would like to fish in our waters, how much they are allowed to catch, what size and what species.
That is what we know and were promised by Brexit. Not Traitor May lying, deceiving and conniving to keep the U.K. in the EU in all but name- not only a bad deal but the worse deal in history that no self respecting nation could ever agree. The WA and PD exhibit A that needs to be repudiated as the EU has not negotiated in good faith.
The French appear to know the exact position of the border to the millimeter when it comes to escorting boats of illegal immigration!
September 2, 2020
Hope, Exactly – if we can only have trade deals with foreign countries which control our fisheries we would have the not so entertaining prospect of the USA and the EU, and many others, slugging it out in the North Sea, as our Remain establishment stands supinely by.
September 2, 2020
And if Scotland got there Independence they would give the fishing rights back to the Eu
Muppets
September 2, 2020
This is a point that the likes of Gove need to imprint on the minds of all Scots. Some do a good job of this in the Commons but the message needs taking north of the border every now and again. Seizing back full control of our fish should be a ‘Decisive Point’ on our ‘Save our United Kingdom’ campaign plan schematic.
September 2, 2020
That’s one of the reasons they won’t vote for independence.
Plus the Ā£2000 per head bung from ENGLAND.
September 2, 2020
Agree Ian but the Ā£2,000 per head is only how much more the UK Government gives them of English money than they give the English. The total bung from England is much much higher. 13 billion pounds a year more than they generate and if we didnāt count North Sea oil as Scottish income, it would be higher still. Never mind though, Johnās colleagues think shafting the English is a price worth paying to preserve their so called union.
September 2, 2020
No, the Scots would negotiate collectively, as part of the European Union, for a sensible arrangement, which is simply what most of the members do over almost everything in the remit.
September 2, 2020
They are not part of the EU. You just live āCollectivismā donāt you?
September 3, 2020
Lynn
But they voted 62/38 Remain. That makes it far more unassailable than the 52/48 you Brexiters claim gives you the right to decide our future.
It will herald the end of the union.
September 3, 2020
But we voted as a United Kingdom
September 2, 2020
Is that a ‘negotiation’ like we had? – where the EU took all the fish and allocated us ten percent. One Dutch super trawler hoovers up more than our fishing fleet and they put most of our fishing towns out of business. What a good deal.I British fish suddenly all became part of their ‘shared assets’ – where is our share of the French vinyards?
September 2, 2020
Especially as we invented Champagne!
September 3, 2020
Interesting. Sparkling wine (some kind of Blanquette de Limoux) was already quoted in 1531 in some local abbey in the East of France, obtained by bottling wine before fermentation was finished.
The Englishman, Christopher Merret, published a paper in 1662 about inducing a second fermentation by adding sugar to an already alcoholic drink, in his case, cider.
A similar technique, addition of sugar, to wine was developed/used in the Champagne area about 20 years later.
Did that make the English (and you in particular) invent Champagne? If that makes you happy to think so, well who am I to contradict you? And does that make Pol Roger to be produced in England?
September 2, 2020
Wake up and smell the coffee Martin the snp will give away thereās and all of Scotlands soles to be in the Eu so a small sacrifice like the fishing rights will mean didley swat
September 2, 2020
Martin, No, Scotland is tiny, much smaller than the UK, but even we “collectively” were unable to “negotiate … for a sensible arrangement”. The CFP has been a disaster.
September 2, 2020
and Nicola’s strident voice will be heard all over the EU.
Lucky, aren’t they?
September 2, 2020
And accept unlimited “Migrants” who would NOT stay in Scotland, but just head South into England.
September 2, 2020
And before then, no doubt the UK Government will hand over some of Englandās waters to Scotland.
September 2, 2020
Nope. They would pool their resources with the EU, so they would get more lucrative export markets for their fish than would be on offer in Scotland alone and the EU27 would get a wider choice of fish. WIN WIN! As opposed to your bonehead Brexit where the UK kicks out foreign boats only to find that the biggest export markets (by far) for its fish are now behind big expensive tariff walls because you flounced out of the EU customs union and single market without ever understanding what they are. LOSE LOSE
September 2, 2020
Grimsby Cod, Is that a bigger export market for the fish Scotland would not be allowed to catch by the EU? A massive increase in not-sales of not-fish, then, rather like EU farmers not-farming not-sheep.
September 2, 2020
The tariff is paid by the consumer, in other words the French will pay far more for their fish. So in addition to more expensive fish because the EU wont be sensible and negotiate in a spirit of mutual respect, a huge number of their fishermen will be unemployed. The ‘win win’ in this is the fish will remain in the sea and the sea can recover from the disaster that has been the CFP.
September 3, 2020
Tariffs on fresh fish are 5% to 10%.
The pound goes up and down more than that.
The auction process of landed fresh fish varies more than that.
It is just more uninformed Project fesr from you.
In an article in the Guardian the chief of the Scottish Fishermens Association said the UK should not fear tariffs and thinks post Brexit the catch could at least double.
September 2, 2020
Very cheap WTO ābarrierā And apparently the EU canāt live without our fish, they canāt buy elsewhere either (having destroyed the African fishing grounds too) so,what are they going to do? Pay or go vegan?šš lose lose for the EU win win for the U.K.
Pray to God there is no ādealā – who would want a politician negotiating a trade deal anyway? Now if we had a businessman like Trump, the Master Dealer … well…
September 2, 2020
Good morning
I fully expect a fudge on this issue. The government must surely know the public mood and see this as the ultimate test on BREXIT. The EU must know this too and are probably using it as a stick to beat us with knowing that the UK Governments real desire for EU-LITE/ Association Membership rests on them giving in. In short. The government is between a Roc and a hard Plaice.
And with that, I’ll get my coat š
September 2, 2020
No Point in building new fishery protection vessels if the government do not have the courage to enforce the new rules, whatever they are going to be.
Just look at the farce with the rubber dinghies. We are escorting illegals and helping the criminals.
September 2, 2020
Well, I guess the Tory government will use the fishery protection vessels to protect EU fishermen by escorting them and their catch to a lovely EU port. And when there’s an outcry the government will say they will “crack down” on the illegals, but do nothing. Now where have I heard that before?
September 2, 2020
Even from within their little bubble, the Government must see the public mood on most things Mark but as usual they ignore them.
September 2, 2020
Ban pulse fishing too.
September 2, 2020
+1
September 2, 2020
That were funnyš
The govt. will be even more kippered than it is already if it fails on fish.
It carps on about this Covid nonsense using it as a red herring to divert us but we are watching and more warily than before as Boris flounders around.
If they had the slightest care for our health would they have denied us a staple such as fish when the rest of Europe gorges on it? Lack of iodine = goitre.
Wonderful seafood platters in Dieppe and most of it from our waters!
September 2, 2020
The UK isn’t sovereign and it won’t be even after Johnson completes the charade that we are now witnessing between UK and EU negotiators. On that basis alone and knowing as we do the nature of Tory leaders especially one so transparent as Johnson we can expect little change on this issue and foreign trawlers will still be allowed extensive access to UK waters
The cancerous, Anglophobic political class of the C21st that now controls this nation that they so openly despise will do all they can to ensure we remain as weak as possible at all levels. I include Johnson in that condemnation. He wraps himself in the flag but we know his true nature
It isn’t fish the Tories fear but the shadow of a speech from decades ago
September 2, 2020
Ref your last paragragh.
Yes they feared it because it spoke the truth which has now materialised to the power of ten. It also highlighted their ignorance of the english language and the use of allegory. They were proved politicians of the basest level. Pigmies in a growup world.
September 2, 2020
Such bile on a nice sunny morning. I always prefer the latter. Great comments by the way Sir JR. I trust they reflect what you have said privately and often.
Unfortunately like other correspondents I have for months thought that we would be āsoledā out.
September 2, 2020
UK politicians do not deliver on manifestos or promises.
Yet a small nation like Hungary (and now Poland) can tell the EU it will govern as it wishes – and do so without fear.
The government will say what the public want to hear and then fail to deliver. Illegal immigration is a classic example. There is no desire to curb it – just a need to stop the growing public complaints.
I am not sure what will happen on Brexit, though I fear a fudge. Fishing might be addressed by UK having technical control but giving fishing rights to foreigners for a very small fee.
Brexit as a whole might be completed as if by a magician, using sleight of hand and distraction techniques. A second wave of corona virus would be a useful distraction. Clever wording in the small print might be the sleight of hand.
September 2, 2020
Even then that speech only exposed the true intent of the ruling class and that is what they feared, not the racist attitude that is alleged to have been in it.
They couldn’t stand working class people having the vote, let alone the upper hand when it came to supply and demand for labour – so they started the mass importation of competition for jobs, housing and services to fill shortages… in a baby boom ! They could not let the post WW2 working class advantage stand. Its unwinding began almost immediately (1948)
People were prepared to drive buses, just not at the wages the government had set for them.
Wiser working class people emigrated to New Zealand, Australia and Canada and to this day Wanted Down Under shows people raving about the work-life balance enjoyed there and where they are not despised by their own ruling classes. The way a nation treats its soldiers is a clue as to what it thinks of its working class.
The most symbolic thing for me has been the centenary of WW1. It was originally marked with the silhouette of a British Trooper – soon to be accompanied by the silhouette of a suffragette.
Suffragettes were upper-middle class women campaigning only for the enfranchisement of upper-middle class women (working class men couldn’t vote then either) and were responsible for sending thousands of men to their deaths – men who had already been injured in the trenches shamed to going back by being given white feathers.
September 2, 2020
Yep, a particular two thirds of women got the vote at the same time as working class men in 1918.
September 2, 2020
+1
September 2, 2020
Agreed.
September 2, 2020
+1
September 2, 2020
Please God some of the MPs who spoke made a couple of those critical points.
Yes that is how we have felt from the very start – cheated! The foundation for Brexit was laid by the cunning and ruthless āCommon Marketā and Heath stealing our fish and control over our ancient fishing grounds, which they basically destroyed. Hence the āquotasā.
September 2, 2020
Our fishing industry is relativly small beer in financial terms. It is however emblematic in terms of an honest full Brexit, and very important for all those who work in the industry or could be working in an expanded industry. So, despite its size, it is politically of utmost importance in signaling oue true intent re our return to sovereignty.
September 2, 2020
Something Fishy.
Am the only one who thinks there something fishy about Piers Corbyn getting a Ā£10,000 for an Anti Lockdown protest when Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion protesters don’t get fined?
What kind of justice system fines an individual Ā£10,000 without trial?
September 2, 2020
This unbalanced justice is going to put the whole UK Justice under a microscope soon enough, jail time for someone that urinates next to a police plaque put in place within a week, the girl that burnt a flat on the cenotaph not even faced justice yet and when she does it will be hoped it is all forgotten so she can be given a tap on the wrist.
A woman in Liverpool stealing Ā£95,000 from British benefits let off with just a bit of community service doesn’t have to pay back the money?
September 2, 2020
Note that the BBC reported it thus “[White] Man urinates *at* police plaque.”
Technically true but not what happened. He wasn’t aiming at it – he was *at* the memorial only in the sense of his location. In no way was he attacking the memorial as BLM protesters were.
Their determination to criminalise white men. They also omitted to mention what Mr Harrison was rescuing his victim from (the white man being carried away from his attackers.)
September 2, 2020
Umm.. Stephen,
I think that’s because if your grievance fits the governments agenda as does BLM and XR, you are free to go about your business unfettered by the law even if you’re causing criminal damage or a public nuisance.
However if you’re not agitators but ordinary members of the public fearful of your loss of liberty and freedom you’re expected to “put up and shut up” so Mr Corbyn has duly been made an example of.. Amazing also how fast it was processed!
Sounds very fishy..
September 2, 2020
Agreed
September 2, 2020
I saw this on Toby Young’s Lockdown website:
” I met a teacher last night who was at the Trafalgar Sq. demo on Saturday. No ā really! Very passionate. Like I was, she found herself photographed and in some of the meeja. One of the parents at the school recognised her and fired off a complaint to her headmaster. Term starts next week here, but she wonāt be going in as she has now to isolate from the school for a fortnight. She said the headmaster was good about it and her job is not on the line ā yet.
First they come for you if you donāt kneel, now youāre not allowed to campaign for the freedom others use to try to get you sacked. A reckoning must come. “
September 2, 2020
The corrupt sort!
On the bright side it will probably attract more to his way of thinking.
He debunked āclimate change ā very effectively which is partly why we are seeing what we now see. Covid is the new thing with which to terrorise us!
Piers obviously isnāt very popular with whoever is actually in charge.
September 2, 2020
It is a well known fact that BLM and Extinction Rebellion protestors are mysteriously covered by a bubble which would prevent any infection, whereas any other horrible protestor who would dare traduce the bonafides of our Dear Leader Kim Jong Son and his faithfully brilliant comrade ministers would spread unspeakable microbes and viruses throughout the country and so are well deserving of Exemplary punitive fines.
Zorro
September 2, 2020
Or it could be that they are āuseful idiotsā for a greater purpose….
Zorro
September 2, 2020
Isn’t this due to the fact that they can prove he was an organiser of the event, whereas the others get around legislation by not appointing formal organisers. I get the feeling Mr Corbyn was rather enjoying his “martyr” status, anyway!
September 2, 2020
Why does the government fail to understand that we can, because of the internet nowadays, see the unfairness of fining Piers Corbyn Ā£10k and jailing a man who pisses in the street, whilst kneeling literally and figuratively before the violent thugs from BLM, Antifa, and XR? That we can’t see when the government says it’s going to “crack down” on immigration, but does nothing? What is it with the cultural-marxist establishment, BBC and civil servants?
September 2, 2020
I find myself in agreement with all you wished to say. I would add the following. Do we scientifically know what is going on in our fishing grounds in terms of resident species their average maturity and which ones might be endangered. With such information we could make decisions on what is allowed to be caught,in what volume, and most importantly by what method. Choose the right method ie line as opposed to trawl and you can control the maturity of fish taken. Living in Spain I know very well their addiction to fish and almost everything that comes from the sea. However it is also obvious that they have little consideration for the maturity of fish they take. Turbot the size of plaice and cod no larger than sea bass. We need to ensure that this stops.
A revitalised UK fishing industry will largely be an export industry as we in the UK have a very limited taste for fish and at the retail level knowledge and outlets are very limited. In Worcester there isn’t a fish counter worthy of its name. A serious tip, if for instance the French in particular embargo fish imports in a tissy fit, as is their wont, we should fly refrigerated cargoes daily to Tokyo where the desire for seafood is as great as anywhere on the continent of Europe. Glasgow to Tokyo is around ten hours for some of the best langostinos and scallops you will ever taste and the price is right.
Finally there is almost cerainly room for responsible controlled fishing in our wsters for some continental boats. Licence them, make sure they know the rules, and police them with fishery protection that understands all the dodges.
September 2, 2020
Fish is excellent for health.
In combination with the healthy eating drive perhaps Mr Rashford could encourage children to get a taste for it.
Also super trawlers are probably OK according to Remainers so long as they are EU super trawlers.
September 2, 2020
EU super trawlers are a new kind of honest straight talking super trawler. Well, according to the usual anti-British Remains on here . . .
September 2, 2020
My family and I all eat lots of fish, more so than meat.
This is a problem with schools not teaching proper cooking any longer, and chefs that they show all the time not cooking using the produce from the largest supermarkets that most people use to see just how restricted choices are – possibly because people don’t know how to cook them.
September 2, 2020
In fairness to supermarkets they are there to sell, to respond to demand. In the UK that demand is very limited which accounts for the differences I see in Spain. Very large prawns called langostinos or gambas are half the price per kilo in Spain as miserable little prawns in the UK. Say about Euros 9.00 per kilo. Probably because Mercadona buy them in vastly greater numbers than those not bought by UK supermarkets. If I want clams I usually have a choice of four varieties. As I have said many times fish and shellfish are a whole different world in Spain.
September 2, 2020
A piece of fish, either a fillet or whole, with a little butter, lemon and pepper, wrapped in foil with some greens and put in the oven for 10 to 20 minutes doesn’t take much teaching.
It is not a cheap meal though unless using frozen fillets of pollock.
September 3, 2020
I agree NS and the teaching could be done quickly and easily at school to show just how easy it is, how little waste, much faster than cooking meat.
There are also king prawn curries, Hoisin Salmon fillets, fish stew, Halibut with noodles loads of quick and easy ways to fill a family or just a solo student for a low cost.
September 2, 2020
In his six-point manifesto for fishing, our host rightly finds room for a requirement to generally reduce food-miles. While I admire your entrepreneurial spirit, flying cargo to Japan is certainly not going to meet that test. Bad luck.
September 2, 2020
It is a test of adherence to a false god that I do not recognise.
September 2, 2020
Will, That’s why our host generally wants to reduce food miles – ie not in every single instance.
September 2, 2020
It is not true to say that we have no taste for fish in the UK, fresh fish has simply been priced out of range of most pockets since 1972. It is true though that the number of outlets has reduced massively, to the point that it is virtually impossible to buy such value staples as fresh herring and mackerel.
September 2, 2020
I believe Mr Johnson is aware that our fishing industry will be a powerful symbol of our exit from the EU.
Remain supporters will not be comfortable with such a symbol.
September 2, 2020
As a remain supporter – or should I say a rejoiner – I genuinely do not care about such an irrelevant industry. Of course it will be a shame when many in it lose their jobs because of Brexit. But they mostly voted for it. I am not too bothered if people who voted for Brexit lose their jobs because of Brexit. It was, after all, their choice. And fishermen, farmers, hauliers will all lose out big time.
September 2, 2020
The reverse of course is true. You have the consistency that a golfer would admire – always 100% off target though.
September 2, 2020
You “genuinely do not care”, Andy, or literally do not care? That simply shows what a careless person you are. But the genuine increase in the size of our fishing industry, and the literally far better ecological management of fish stocks, are things I care about. So UK fishermen, farmers, hauliers will all gain from Brexit. And until 1st Jan 2021 you remain a Remain, not a rejoiner.
September 2, 2020
‘And fishermen, farmers, hauliers will all lose out big time.’
And those that are EU businesses will be hit 5 times as hard.
September 2, 2020
It will be a shame when many lose their jobs in fishing as a result of Brexit. You really are a grade A half-wit. Thousands lost their jobs I fishing as a result of joining the EU. When – IF – we leave, jobs in fishing will increase.
September 2, 2020
Mollifying the Brexit majority is the bigger worry.
Fishing was the most dangerous occupation in the country, in terms of lives lost and accidents at sea.
Suitable vessels and capable manpower will not be instantly available.
So that might be used as the excuse for granting continued European access on very lenient terms.
September 2, 2020
Surly the Spanish, Germans and French will have a huge fleet of trawlers, nearly new, going begging? I know we have paid for them once but may as well help out and get something for the money this time?
September 2, 2020
@Oldwulf; If Mr Johnson wants “a powerful symbol of our exit from the EU” he (and our host) has picked a wrong’ne by picking up and running with the UKIP lies with regards our coastal fishing industry, after all Brexit will not change UN maritime laws nor the numbers of fish in the sea, or were the fish are found…
The PM might have been better to try and patch up the many problems our EEC/EU membership caused the Commonwealth, now that would be a powerful symbol of our re-entry onto the worlds economic stage.
September 2, 2020
Jerry, UNCLoS allows coastal states the right to exploit resources in their EEZ up to 200nm from their coast. That right, currently exercised by the EU, will revert to UK control once we finally (!!) Leave the EU on 1st Jan 2021. The UN law won’t change, but who benefits does. You claim these are “UKIP lies”. Care to cite these “lies” and the UKIP sources? Or can’t you?
September 3, 2020
@NickC; Correct, but those EEZ areas claims can be contested were they overlap, and most of “our” EEZ’s do just that. Stop thinking as if the UK is an island in the middle of the Atlantic akin to Iceland, rather than an island surrounded by EU member states who can also claim EEZ rights.
As for UKIP lies, I cite any of their manifesto promises on fishing, hence why you are so misinformed about EEZs!
September 4, 2020
Th UK EEZ declaration (SI 2013 no. 3161) already takes account of and respects the EEZs of neighbouring costal states.
September 4, 2020
@dixie; Well yes, if the UK wishes to remain a signatory to the present CFP., under which the UNCLoS ‘granted’ the EEZ, otherwise those EEZs are justifiably changeable.
September 5, 2020
@Jerry
The SI and UNLOS Bulletin make no mention of the EU or the CFP whatsoever. It does refer to individual treaties with individual neighbouring coastal states.
It should be noted that the UN submission also includes rights over an area of the continental shelf beyond 200 miles as covered in UNLOS Articles 76 to 85.
September 2, 2020
O/t Due to a local lockdown that was imposed last night in Glasgow and East Renfrewshire I cannot meet my daughter at her house. Bizarrely it would be lawful to meet her in a pub, as the pubs are authorised to remain open. How crazy is that? Does it make any sense whatsoever?
September 2, 2020
Coercive Control
Isn’t that against the law now?
Where are those World Class Human Rights Lawyers Cherie Blair and Amal Clooney when you need them?
September 2, 2020
No idea how true this is but I read that in Australia they are forming Common Law Assemblies which require the authorities to step down and desist from this unlawful coercion.
September 2, 2020
It makes as much sense as MPs’ bars being shuttered in Westminster and our MPs then having to cross a road to find a smaller, more cramped one. (Expect coverage on Guido today.) Amazingly, PPE courses – attended by so many of our ministers – focus on ‘logic’ in their first year!
September 2, 2020
All this “hand sanitiser” nonsense.
9:05 “Oh dear I’ve touched something – I must sanitise my hands”
9:11 “Oh dear I’ve touched something again – I must sanitise my hands again”
9:16 “Oh dear I’ve touched something again – I must sanitise my hands again”
9:21 “Oh dear I’ve touched something again – I must sanitise my hands again”
9:23 “Oh dear I’ve touched something again – I must sanitise my hands again”
9:29 “Oh dear I’ve touched something again – I must sanitise my hands again”
9:34 “Oh dear I’ve touched something again – I must sanitise my hands again”
9:45 “Oh dear I’ve touched something again – I must sanitise my hands again”
9:46 “Oh dear I’ve touched something again – I must sanitise my hands again”
9:48 “Oh dear I’ve touched something again – I must sanitise my hands again”
September 2, 2020
Are you alright? Do you need help? A cold compress?
September 2, 2020
Oh dear!
Now Iāve got a resistant superbug!
And eczema.
September 2, 2020
Perhaps you should sanitise the item you cannot stop touching.
September 2, 2020
@Stephen Priest; Those who’s jobs involve invisible contaminates faced such a conundrum as you paint even before Covid-19, the ‘sanitising advice’ given out by the govt was simple common sense, no one was asking people to become OCD about!
September 2, 2020
No. But then top down, one rule fits all, government dictat/rules never do make very much sense. We have only about 10 UK deaths from Covid each day slightly less than are killed or seriously injured while cycling each day. Daily deaths are running at about 1,350 per day (about normal for this time of year).
Can we please now get things into perspective and get back to normal. Childen cycling and walking to and from schools (as encouraged by the government) are taking larger risks in doing this than from Covid19.
September 2, 2020
I have a similar instruction at work.
Should someone be tested positive I too will have to isolate if I have only been 2 metres away from them for 15 minutes. 14 minutes and 59 seconds is ok but an extra second and it all changes apparently. It seems that this is following government advice. I can follow sensible but I have a real issue with stupid.
September 2, 2020
If the pubs are open and restaurants no that doesn’t make sense. You would take more care of food and drink preparation in your home than a publican and could clean anything she touches or the toilet if she used it.
September 2, 2020
No.
Our son, who has special needs, spent the first 3 months of lockdown living with us. After that, he returned to his own flat which he shares with another person with special needs and where he enjoys some support.
He is now allowed to travel to Reading, visit pubs, go to shops, go to the cinema and meet up with his friends. But he is no longer allowed to visit his family home.
This is all for a virus for which only a very small fraction of the population test positive, most people experience no symptoms at all and evidence suggests that 90% of those who do test positive are not contagious is any way.
What is this doing to people’s mental health?
September 2, 2020
@matthu; “Our son, who has special needs [..//..] But he is no longer allowed to visit his family home.”
Nonsense, unless you are telling is you have stopped being part of his ‘care bubble’?…
September 2, 2020
What is this doing to peopleās mental health? Driving them nuts.
September 3, 2020
@Mike Wilson; Or it has brought about much improvement in mental health, there being less hustle-n-bustle about, with many, many, more people being considerate of others and their needs, most people have being far less Me! Me! Me!, thus creating a more calm society – before Covid the naturally inconsiderate child was difficult to detect amongst the adults behaving similarly…
September 2, 2020
Sounds ideal in Glasgow. I thought you all met in pubs anyway. I see Nicola has put the most covid free country in Europe, Greece, on the quarantine list because some tourists came back to Scotland with it. Perhaps they took it out and spent too much time together in the taverna without a mask with a straw through it.
September 2, 2020
The overwhelming majority of positive tests that the government are putting forward as justification for local lockdowns and restrictions are asymptomatic – and the NHS has said that the test is not reliable unless you have symptoms.
The government is knowingly using unreliable data to enforce local lockdowns and draconian restrictions. They are also restricting people coming back from holidays and not even bothering to test any of them to assess the effectiveness of these measures.
Because they are not interested in justifying their actions?
September 2, 2020
Matthau
Itās funny, talking to a friend yesterday she made the observation that weāve been lucky where we live (suburb, South London). We donāt seem to have had too many cases or deaths , and Iām wondering if this is actually true elsewhere too.
The USA department of health ( canāt remember itās full title) have had another look at their deaths and of 179,000 odd deaths only 9,700 cases were Covid 19 only.
A Surrey consultant said a couple of months ago he thought the figures were 5-10 times too high… Iāll leave you to do the maths on UK figures.
September 2, 2020
NO!
Absolutely none whatsoever.
Sturgeon is politicking.
September 2, 2020
Jayem, at least that’s something that cannot be laid at Johnson’s door. This time it’s Sturgeon that’s got it all wrong.
September 2, 2020
No it does not make logical sense. You cannot lock down an area on the pick or mix basis you describe. Thinking nationally, I would want to know if there is anything that links these disperate areas around the UK. Is it the people in them, the way they behave, or types of industries in these areas that gives us clues that would enable us to take precautions in so far unaffected areas. Knowledge enables sensible decisions to be made.
September 2, 2020
Of course not, why should it make sense?
Zorro
September 2, 2020
Stewart Jackson in the Telegraph today says:- The right man to reboot the Civil Service
The Simon Case I know has all the qualities he will need to reform our clunking state bureaucracy.
Well looking at Simon Caseās CV if does not inspire much confidence:-Private School, History at Cambridge then a PHD in History (under Peter Hennessy) then entirely state sector employment. Let us hope he is more like JR than someone similar to (for example) Lord Debden (Gummer).
September 2, 2020
Maybe you should look at Stewart Jacksonās CV and wonder why he does inspire your confidence?
I still wonder what qualified him to be David Davisā taxpayer funded chief of staff. (6 figure salary).
September 2, 2020
His politics qualified him. He was one of the first signatories of the BDI (British Declaration of Independence), in 1999.
September 2, 2020
Oh yes, this funny text pretending to be as meaningful as the (real) Declaration of Independence of 4 July 1776. Some people must have eaten too many magic mushrooms.
But it is always good for a laugh.
September 2, 2020
Itās too subtle for you. It repealed the ā72 Act impliedly and got us to where we are today but without the WA. Would have been a boon in 1999 without the trauma and risk of a fiddled Referendum.
Look at the list of Patrons, and shudder because you have set yourself against them and the British People.
September 2, 2020
Strange. His incompetence should have disqualified him.
September 2, 2020
Andy you are rejected even by the desperate EU which will take impoverished and illiterate people from anywhere. (We know this because your desire is to live in āyour beloved EUā).
Incompetence is a synonym for Andy on this blog.
September 2, 2020
Incidentally, Shapps signed too … and of course Ronnie Campbell etc.
September 2, 2020
Andy, Wonder no more! It’s because David Davis is an elected MP and you’re not. So he gets to approve his Spad, not you. Is that clear enough?
September 2, 2020
You know nothing about him, just the usual obsession about qualifications in early 20s to the person many years on. Stewart highlighted his achievements which are stellar.
Political sophistication is not your metier, but I would suggest of relevance is SJs comment that he will quickly be briefed against and then read Camilla Tominey, who is the DTs go to person for such briefings, when she reports precisely that.
September 2, 2020
How does an Oxbridge history degree rate vs PPE ? How about Classics(Boris)?
Can you rank them in an order for us?
What are the views of this Case chap on greencrap(sic)?
September 2, 2020
To my mind History & Classics are better than Law & Geography which is better than PPE but there are exceptions Tony Abbot for example. Usually people with little of no science or engineering fall for climate alarmism. This as they do not feel qualified to question it and are constantly & incorrectly told “the science” says so and there is a consensus. This by people on the make, seeking research funding, bogus charities, politicians or the BBC.
Infact CO2 is only a small part of the warming and man made C02 and even smaller part still. Plus the solutions they propose do not really work even in Co2 terms they just export jobs and businesses. Also a little warmer is on balance rather better anyway.
But they are not scientists & have not thought it through (or perhaps are not capable of thinking it though).
September 2, 2020
What happens to EU companies that have legitimately bought UK quota? Are they honoured, compensated or do they just lose their investment?
September 2, 2020
Tough.
They will be treated like our fishermen were in the 70s
Nothing is for ever.
September 2, 2020
Pay them off I think, unless under a new arrangement they are allowed to continue as I have already outlined.
September 2, 2020
If quota has been purchased, and is going to be taken away, then the purchase price should be returned. British fair-play would see to that. The sensible approach in all this is to run-down the EU’s access over time, aligned with the notional life of a fishing boat, say thirty years. As the EU quota goes down, the UK’s share of our resources would go up. But the EU would still have to pay for every fishy it takes.
I look forward to seeing you express some concern for British fishermen.
September 2, 2020
I think when you buy quota it is only for a limited period, but you have a dog in the game when the next allocation is made. However, as the UK is no longer a member of the EU and will leave the CFP on 31st December your quota become worthless.
September 2, 2020
We have no quota dear, just the whole bloody lot! Worth everything, even lives.
September 3, 2020
Lynn
Don’t tell the Icelanders. They might want to repeat their success in the 3 ‘cod wars’ where:
“the United Kingdom conceded to a 200-nautical-mile Icelandic exclusive fishery zone.
As a result, British fishing communities lost access to rich areas and were devastated, with thousands of jobs lost. Since 1982, a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone has been the United Nations standard.”
September 3, 2020
Oh sorry I thought they all sold their quotas and cashed in.
That is what you’ve been telling us.
September 2, 2020
Dave, can you explain, did they buy the UK quota for a lifetime? How much did they pay for that? Who did they pay for that?
September 2, 2020
The same as to the UK fishing fleet when Iceland chucked them out, presumably?
September 2, 2020
If you have legitimately bought UK quota, you have a legitimate right to it, but if the quota reduces, the value of your right diminishes. I don’t suppose anybody invested assuming they were entitled to a UK quota in perpetuity.
September 2, 2020
I imagine that any legal contracts will be honoured but also they will be finite – e.g. time limited not open ended – so will end over time.
September 2, 2020
Maybe EU fishermen should get the same compensation from Brussels as our fishermen got from Brussels when they they lost their livliehoods.
September 3, 2020
Reaction Harry
They didn’t ‘loose their livelihoods’, they flogged their quotas to the highest bidders and retired ‘rich’.
September 3, 2020
Complete nonsense.
Please stop reposting this Margaret.
You know it is incorrect.
September 2, 2020
The EU refunds them if they bought UK fish beyond our Referendum. They have had 6 years!
September 2, 2020
let the buyer beware!
September 2, 2020
So you weren’t going to suggest that the EU should pay handsomely for access to our fishing grounds, like any any country would?
P.S. OFFSHORE patrol vessels – not ONSHORE. No to that; we have enough and recapitalisation of the fleet is in progress. A further expansion of the OPV fleet would probably come at the expense of warfighting naval capabilities, of which the Royal Navy now has too few.
September 2, 2020
Fishing is, of course, a largely irrelevant industry. Worth just 1% of the UKs economy. Imagine if Brexiteers had spent as long fighting for services or pharmaceuticals or creative arts or hauliers as they did for people who catch fish? Anyway….
Brexit causes multiple problems for the fishing industry – none of which the Brexiteers have been honest about. This lack of honesty is a theme.
Firstly, it is not just EU fishermen who catch fish in our waters. A significant number of our fishermen catch fish in their waters. Those British fishermen will lose out if a deal is not made.
Secondly, most of the fish caught in our waters is exported to the EU. It turns out that we donāt like to eat the things that live here. Brexiteers are making it harder to sell the fish we catch to, by far, our biggest customer. That wonāt end well.
Thirdly, herring – one of the main species caught here – spoils easily. The extra Brexit bureaucracy the Tories are creating will sure lead to truck loads of it going off. Still a lorry sat in a Brexit bureaucracy centre full of rotting fish would at least sum up Brexit.
Fourthly, most of the fish we buy comes from the single market. Brexit will not change this. Nobody will really be ordering herring and chips anytime soon.
Finally, the UK is under a legal obligation to consider historic fishing rights. This is international law and nothing to do with the EU. We have been fishing in each otherās waters for centuries – and the UK government will end up in court if it ignores this.
Plus, we mustnāt forget that many of the foreign fishermen are now there because they bought the rights to fish in British waters from British fishermen – who were allowed, by the Thatcher government, to sell those rights.
I donāt eat fish so I really donāt care about this irrelevant industry. But it is quite clear to anyone who has done even a modicum of research that Brexit will cause is as much harm as good – and will possibly finish swathes of it off permanently.
September 2, 2020
Muddled thinking.
September 2, 2020
If fishing is an irrelevant industry, why is it so high on the EU’s agenda?
September 2, 2020
Hardly any UK fishermen use other states waters. Why do you think the EU has been so intransigent in its refusal to properly recognise UK sovereignty over our waters ?
You talk about ‘Historic fishing rights’. Such rights, whether granted by King Canute or Henry VIII, were extingished with the London Fisheries Convention of 1963, and it is argued that these rights were themselves subsumed into the CFP. The UK has denounced the London FC, which many considered dead anyway, and is leaving the CFP. As such no Historic fishing rights exist and they would not do so if the were incompatable with UNCLOS and the UKs sovereign rights to her EEZ.
September 2, 2020
Andy
The fishing industry has been decimated since our EU membership.
And itās an industry that requires the boats to be built, motors, netting etc quayside provisions and so on, which provides employment for many people.
Itās too easy to dismiss it as unimportant.
September 2, 2020
Andy, thank you – very well explained and all of it correct (apart from the size of the industry, it’s only 0.1% of our economy not 1%). I would dearly love to see the more educated Brexiters like Sir John give some reasoned responses to these truthful statements such as how we would deal with the UN convention on the Law of the Sea. Unfortunately we will probably only hear from the enraged Daily Mail readers who promulgate the jingoistic trope about being a fully independent coastal state and dream of sending the Royal Navy to torpedo French trawlers
September 2, 2020
Andy, We did spend as long fighting to take back control of the things you mention from the EU. But why exclude fish? Especially when it was stolen from us by the EU. You’re especially keen on “rights” – so why no keenness for the UK to take back its right to fish in its own waters?
September 2, 2020
The EU think it is important even if you don’t.
September 2, 2020
šš I knew you did not eat fish, āfish gives you brainsā just as ācarrots give you good eyesightā – learned in the nursery.
September 2, 2020
Andy again misses the point of Brexit.
Leavers did not vote for Brexit for financial gain but to cease being a colony of the EU and be able to influence our laws and policies (trade, fiscal, taxation, energy, environmental, foreign, military, immigration etc.) through retaining the right to elect and remove those who make these decisions.
Like any other sovereign nation we expect to control our fishing grounds even if the fishing industry represents just 1% of our economy. However, so decimated it was by the EU that in time it could become 5% or even 10% of our economy.
If the EU refuses to buy our fish or puts on high tariffs etc. then I would expect our government to support our fishing industry to retrain/recruit UK fishermen and develop the vessels and equipment needed to fish in our waters and, if necessary, to find new export markets if the fish are not sold in the UK.
If in the meantime not all the fish in our waters are fished, then at least the stocks will be increased.
BTW, note in the current negotiations that the EC does not want an FTA but prefers a āno dealā as they take 80% of all EU import duty and hence will be taking a harder line in the negotiations than any individual country.
September 2, 2020
At present time more than 60 per cent of fish landed from UK waters is caught by foreign boats but it’s not just about where fish is caught it is also about where fish can be sold. This is very important because currently most of the fish landed by British fishermen is exported to EU countries while most of the fish eaten here is imported.
So how will things be when foreign boats are banned from UK waters? looks like tariffs will apply for imports/exports and consequently there will be a huge contraction in the whole of the UK fishing industry both at sea and onshore until we can get new boats built and train up more of our young people to get active in fishing work again. Thereafter the industry should grow apace to a level where we have enough catch for home consumption and some for wherever we can find markets- we will have to get used to the idea again of eating fish we don’t usually eat in large quantities like shellfish herring and mackeral so then big changes on the way but I have my doubts
September 2, 2020
Hopalong, The EU cannot vindictively prevent specifically UK fish being sold in the EU. So the whole basis of your comment is wrong. Unless of course the EU and the EU27 cease to be members of the WTO.
September 2, 2020
Boris must not cave in of Fisheries or anything else. We need to leave without a deal. Any deal which is now being called a treaty will require the ECJ to adjudicate with future issues. The ECJ interfering is also a definite no. If he caves in to either Boris will commit political suicide. We have waited since 2016 for this freedom from the EU, being stabbed in the back all the way, unfortunately by our own 5th column who cannot and never will accept the democratic vote the U.K. in 2016.
Keep going Boris and donāt give an inch. Walk away from the negotiations. The EU objective is to control the UK after this year through a complicated treaty that will have the U.K. in the ECJ for decades.
September 2, 2020
Where is IDS who promised that the German car workers would be hammering down Mrs Merkel door and then the great negotiator DD said it would be easiest thing ever- he said we would pick them off one by one and they would settle at the last monent
And Gove said the French wine growers would be doing hand stands
None of any of this has happened- Fox promised us new deals with countries far away.. but where?.. none if any of this has happened.. I can only conclude that we were horribly lied to. Shame shame
September 2, 2020
O/T I read yesterday that when we finally cut all ties with the EU in December,that although the ECA72 becomes void, deal or no deal, The Extradition Act 2003 is separate. If itās not amended or repealed it remains in place. Can you tell me if this is correct, please?
What else needs repealing separately and more to the point, will they be?
September 2, 2020
Yes the Extradition Act is separate and should be repealed. Germany signed the Extradition Act but gave itself an opt out – so Germans canāt be extradited.
Lots more needs to be repealed, but first we need to enact a safeguard to ensure that our Constitution can only be amended or repealed with a supermajority in Parliament supported by a supermajority of the British people in a Referendum.
September 2, 2020
Agree with all your points.
Also, we need to ramp up our R&D on marine resources as Agricola outlines above but also on a wider scale. Seaweed offers valuable materials for energy, food, pharmaceuticals and medical applications yet we have virtually no activities in that area.
September 2, 2020
Piers, instead of an anti-lockdown protest, should perhaps have gone for an illegal drugfest rave. Might have made money rather than getting a Ā£10,000 fine.
September 2, 2020
Good morning Sir John – I also agree with you.
It was reported recently that ‘Green Peace’ had been monitoring the actions of ‘the ultra large predatory trawlers’ in the breeding season ripping up everything they could find on the breeding grounds. If true that is self defeating destruction by those that wish to be seen as friendly.
September 2, 2020
If there was pressure for more MPs to have their say on such an important matter, why was the debate not extended?
September 2, 2020
We have seen from the May-Robbins approach to negotiating with the EU that once you cave in one one thing they will push on another area.
It seems to be the case that the EU has a political objective to achieve a deal with the U.K. which involves legal and political subjugation. We should not worry about that or complain about it – it is entirely up to them to set their priorities, mistaken as we might think they are.
But we should be clear that in all areas, fishing, state aid, dispute settling mechanism etc, we will gladly sign up to similar arrangements as exist in other sensible FTAs, like the US-Australia, US-NZ, EU-Japan deals etc. But we will under no circs and in no area agree to be An economic colony of the EU.
September 2, 2020
Let’s make sure we have enough gun boats to chase off the thieving continentals that will continue to steal our fish …
September 2, 2020
I very much doubt it, despite the fact that both the Royal Navy and the Border Force have had four years to get ready.
September 3, 2020
I think they imagined we wouldn’t have this problem?
September 2, 2020
JR
It was EU fishing regulations that save cod from virtually dying out and has now restored supply to a sustainable quota.
It was our government that opposed restrictions:
“Britain will oppose proposals to curtail cod catches in the North Sea next year. Environment minister Richard Benyon last week pledged to vote against moves to make further restrictions in the time that fishermen spend at sea, and promised to oppose moves to reduce North Sea cod quotas.”
Guardian 2012
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/dec/16/britain-fights-eu-cod-restrictions
And it was many of our fishermen who chose to sell their allocated quotas to the highest bidders for a quick profit rather than long term investment as Spain, for instance, did.
Surely you remember that?
September 2, 2020
It was EU fishing quotas by species that has created 20ft of dead fish on the ocean floor!
September 2, 2020
The quotas our fishermen were given were uneconomic. Thatās why they sold them. Letās rewind. An area of sea, the territorial waters of one country. That one country fishes its waters or up to 28 countries fishes its waters. Which is feasible to manage or control? Surely you can work that out.
September 2, 2020
The contradiction is that the UK buys the vast majority of its Cod from China.
That is simply due to the reckless over fishing by EU mainland based fishing fleets.
September 2, 2020
They were forced to sell, the quotas allocated the British trawlermen were insufficient to be financially viable. So they were forced to sell their quota and boat to continentals who had received a bigger quota, making them solvent and able to buy more quota. Donāt you remember that? Thatās what always happens when the politicians āarrange thingsā.
September 2, 2020
The effect of the quotas imposed on the UK fishing industry were so negative that many companies were faced with financial disaster.
They sold up packed up and got out.
Some businesses closed after many decades of successful trading.
Have a generous consideration for the trauma and distress this change caused to these decent people Margaret.
Imagine it happened to you.
September 2, 2020
Margaret
If you go back the 7 years you suggest.
I think you will find that the Uk fishermen were against the Eu putting more limits on them, than were being proposed to other Countries fishermen, to such an extent that the reduction they proposed to the Uk fisherme,n made it total pointless going out to sea at all, as they could not cover their overheads and expenses given the restrictions proposed..
September 2, 2020
Still pumping out the fake news, I see, MH
September 2, 2020
If this government actually manages to do anything right it will be a miracle. The US Centre for Disease Control has admitted that 90% of alleged covid victims actually died of something else and that 90% positive tests are wrong. The whole lockdown hysteria is at the very, very most generous a gross miscalculation and at worst the biggest scam in history. Any politician, bureaucrat or journalist that has promoted it should resign from office immediately and be cowering in their home awaiting the knock on the door and the sound of handcuffs being made ready. The present ruling class in Britain (and most of the world) is incompetent, greedy, corrupt and criminal and will most probably get away with it again because our population suffers from government education and systematic media indoctrination.
I fear for my childs future.
September 2, 2020
The UK will only be free when it through its own Parliament completely controls what happens inside its own territory. Any fudge on this will be the ‘salami slicing’ of democracy to a foreign power. Lets not forget the EU is a foreign power that is leveraging an advantage for its self (I was going to say for its people, but their rulers don’t care about the people – just personal power)
What happens in the EU by UK organisations dealing with the EU is the responsibility of the EU. Those heading in that direction should respect that and comply. What happens inside the UK is the domain of the People of the UK, anything else is the surrender of a whole people.
Rest assured the EU hierarchy has to chip away, undermined all peoples and nations outside their protectionist cabal.
One illustration of this, which is very subtle is the so-called EU Human Rights. EU Citizens are given permission and approval to do things by their rulers, no approval and you are breaking the laws and rules – operating illegally . Under what was termed English Law, you don’t get permission as everything is permissible, unless your Democratically Elected representative has taken it away. Meaning everything is legal unless by democratic means it has been removed, this then can be amended and repealed by your democratically elected representative. Very subtle but it is the difference between a Free People and a subjugated People
It is this difference the EU Controllers don’t understand, any laws, rules etc inside the UK can and are made, controlled, changed by the people of this country, so outsiders can never dictate as to what they should be. If the people don’t like the way things are they change the government and then any outside influence is dropped.
September 2, 2020
It may be implicit in your point 3 & the banning of the oversized trawlers, but there needs to be an explicit ban on ‘pulse’ fishing in our waters which is devastating the fish & environs. The EU does have a ban on this, EXCEPT (there’s always an ‘except’ in the EU) for ‘research’ purposes. They recently increased the numbers allowed to do this by 25%. This smacks of a workaround their own CFP.
There will be a group set up, no doubt, to monitor & manage our fishing waters. May I suggest that their remit is wide & includes ‘other’ impacts on sealife in our waters. I do not know if there’s ever been a proper study of the impact of sea wind farms. We know that they harm flying birds/bats etc but also that many sea mammals are led astray due to sound/vibration. Do they also impact the fish in some way?
September 2, 2020
I do not get any pleasure from knowing that the French fishermen might be put in a very difficult place by both no-deal and an agreed trade deal but I cannot feel any sorrow for them either because their success evolved from a managed decline of English fishermen by the greedy EU.
The French fishermen in particular ( no doubt supported by their Govt if only through non action ) have threatened blockades and to continue fishing. The UK govt could take the initiative by publishing a list of deterrents for fishing vessels that break the UK’s maritime fishing laws so that foreign vessels know what to expect. Fines and penalties should be draconian.
Errant fishing boats should be escourted back to the UK ( I am assuming the involvement of the UK navy ), the vessel impounded until fines are paid but if the fine is not paid within 6 months the the vessel could be auctioned off after 6 months to pay the fine. There may be alternatives to impounding but legal recourse may be difficult if foreign nationals just ignore the fine and hide somewhere in their own country. Fines may be 50K for smaller vessels, 150K for average sized, 300K for super trawlers, 500K for any vessel fishing in designated protective zones ( no fish areas ). For a second offense just triple the fines ( a 2nd offense would include different vessel but same ownership ). It would not take many captures to deter others.
To reduce the effect of French actions in blockading ports then use Rotterdam, etc and air freight to reach final destination. Cost may be a factor ?
We do need to be firm and have a robust strategy and that should be set out soon to show that the UK means business. Theft is theft.
September 2, 2020
+1. They took not only our waters, but our land, our Parliament, our law and our Monarch. They seem to have done a pretty comprehensive job in our Protestant religion.
September 2, 2020
Lynn
Both ‘our’ monarch and ‘our’ Protestant religion come from Germany.
September 3, 2020
and our PM from Greece.
September 2, 2020
Sir John I agree with your every single word
I just wish we had a firm policy in place and it wasn’t up for negotiation
September 2, 2020
The EU, by demanding that we must subject ourselves to their laws, policies and standards adjudicated by their political courts and give up our sovereignty over our assets (fishing grounds) in order to obtain a trade deal, is in blatant contravention of UN Resolution 3281 Article 32 which states:
āNo State may use or encourage the use of economic, political or any other type of measures to coerce another State in order to obtain from it the subordination of the exercise of its sovereign rights.ā
September 2, 2020
+1
September 2, 2020
Will we be in the European Defence Union or not ? Anne Widdecombe says Boris won’t answer the question.
September 2, 2020
In fairness to Boris, he doesn’t really answer ANY question.
Defence links with the EU are something we can easily do without. The EU’s capability largely duplicates that of NATO – and the Tempest fighter project shows that we can cooperate with the likes of Italy and Sweden without subjecting ourselves to control by Brussels.
September 2, 2020
What questions have Boris answered in the last year?
September 2, 2020
Anonymous
The European defence union is a sensitive subject…it is subject to a separate treaty. Iām not sure we havenāt already been signed up to it.
Veterans for Britain tried desperately to highlight this one a year or so ago.
Iād like to know whatās happening with that too!! Itās rumoured that Ben Wallace is keen for our membership of that, but I donāt know for sure.
September 2, 2020
All good points, Sir John.
I would have added more to point 4) in that 30% of our seas need to be strict ‘No-take’ zones (the zones have been mapped and listed already, but current protections are very weak, still allowing much fishing in these zones). – See ‘Feral’ G. Monbiot 2013 – Chpt 13 ‘Rewilding the sea’.
September 2, 2020
We also need to make explicit that boats engaged in illegal fishing will be confiscated. On the first offence. (If the captain doesnāt like the risk she doesnt have to fish close to the U.K. waters and risk accidentally āgetting lostā). The crew will be offered the option of returning to their own country (not where the boat is registered) or become privateers added to the U.K. patrol fleet, with prize/commission for catching other offenders. If not enough of the crew volunteer as mercenaries, then just scuttle the boat.
Trawlers can be easily spotted from planes or satellites. They move very slowly when fishing. You donāt need fast navy vessels to catch them. Just the determination to enforce the law
September 2, 2020
They can be spotted very cheaply using drones.
September 2, 2020
Providing that small French boats are licenced by the UK and comply , this would be acceptable. The rapacious Dutch and Spanidh mega trawlers should definitely be banned and confiscated if they are found sneaking into British waters.
September 2, 2020
We need a navy to do that. We can’t even keep RIBs out and the people on them are treated like royalty, whilst our vets and tax payers make do with the streets.
September 2, 2020
Why? The French can fish their own waters, if they want our fish it must go to them in boxes in exchange for money.
September 2, 2020
The merchant marine, once the backbone of Britain is now flying under all sorts of flags. A convenience flag allows you to fish off Africa, for instance. And strip the sea.
I do hope that all fish have to be landed here so that this internationalism is restricted. Spanish fleets of “British” ships too are another problem.
I am not at all sure how much regulation the farmers of the sea need either. How far can our own fishermen be trusted (like the Norwegians and Icelanders) to look after their resources?
Edward Heath is now history. Are there any fishing families left to pass on the trade?
September 2, 2020
Our fishermen are the experts at conserving resources – they did it for thousands of years, why do you not ātrustā them now?
September 2, 2020
Did any MP speaking in the debate disagree with any of that ? Did any of them want to give the EU the same access they have now in perpetuity as they are demanding ? What is Starmer’s position ? As Starmer sets government Covid and Education policy it would be interesting to know as Boris will presumably U-Turn to accommodate him on this matter too.
What’s happened to the Free Ports ideas ? Swept under the carpet to keep the EU happy ?
September 2, 2020
Boris is a political busted flush – Dominic Grieve’s opinions keep resonating.
September 2, 2020
I do not profess to understand the workings of the fishing industry across Europe but it seems that the UK fishing fleet, predominantly reduced over the last half century to very small inshore boats, lands catches preferred by consumers on the European mainland.
The preferred species eaten in the UK, Cod, Tuna and Plaice, are predominantly caught by bigger boats working out of EU countries.
The blindingly obvious solution would appear to be for us to redirect our industry towards catching the fish we consume here and landing it in the UK for processing. However, thanks to the CFP we have today, 4,157 fishing vessels below 10m in length but only 1,236 larger boats over 10m. It is the larger vessels that are necessary to catch the fish we overwhelmingly consume in the UK and we simply don’t have anywhere near enough of them.
We would therefore require a new fleet of boats which, whatever the outcome of the negotiations, was always going to be necessary if we are ever to take back the majority of fishing activity in UK waters.
This is why, more than three years ago, I proposed here that the government should commission the design and building of a fleet of new boats to be leased on favourable terms to UK fisherman on condition that they are crewed with British-born crews and each boat has a proportion of British-born apprentices.
Naturally nothing along these lines has been organised and we are left just months away from regaining our fishing grounds without the trained crews and boats which we will need to return our industry to rude health. The only solution appears to be to allow the present arrangements to continue for at least several years which is, I suspect, is what civil servants ( probably led by Ollie Robins ) secretly agreed with their EU counterparts before any serious negotiations even started.
The media have failed to do any proper analysis of the situation and it is therefore impossible for anyone outside the industry to draw firm conclusions as to what will happen – or even what the ultimate goal is to be. I have tried to look at the documents produced by the government eg :
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/863732/UK_sea_fisheries_statistics_2018.pdf
But the 178 page report is too complex and time consuming for a layman to read and draw any real conclusions from. The 2019 report is due for release later this month.
All we are seeing is dramatic headlines but there is no understanding of the issues or what is practical to achieve. Does anyone in Parliament know what is going on ?
September 2, 2020
Its Fisheries Policy has always been one of the worst aspects of the EU with all its waste and damage to the environment. Any compromise on it by our Government would be fatal. I just do not think that Boris can afford a fudge on this one.
I heard George Eustice speak at a rally in Plymouth before the Referendum and I hope he is as effective in Cabinet as he was at a meeting in a fishing constituency.
September 2, 2020
Land as much fish as you like in the UK, 80% of sales go to the EU27 and unless you sign up to the EU rules you will pay tariffs and wait at the border while checks are carried out, which will make UK fishing uneconomic. You voted for fantasy, now youāre getting reality
September 2, 2020
Oh, has the fishing thing been agreed now then? Must have missed that.
September 2, 2020
If tariffs are to be paid the U.K. will get Ā£13 billion pa more than we pay – that is because the EU enjoys greater access to our market than we do to their ever diminishing one (it money that counts not people).
September 2, 2020
Iād eat fish every night to support our fishermen – and Iām a vegan!
September 2, 2020
+1
September 2, 2020
so you become a pescetarian but not a carnivore?
Curious. Would you eat lamb to support the endangered hillside farmers?
September 2, 2020
Hmm… And I always thought it was the importer that paid the tariff… It’s up to the EU if they want to make fish expensive in EU Land…
May be something useful that the BBC could do is a series of cooking programs based on well priced fish available after January 2021…
September 2, 2020
Typical remainer comment. Check the facts regarding the ratios of fish by type allocations and then imply that 80%m of SALES go to the EU27. The fact is that although we do export some fish, the UK allocations by type is abysmally low, which is why 80% go to the EU27. The allocation of the most expensive fish, Plaice and Sole has been awarded to the EU27. Not only that, overall, the EU27 have the largest fleet of destructive bottom-scraping huge trawlers in the world busy turning the sea floor where they operate into a barren desert. Their operation globally has resulted in nations such as New Zealand banning them from their waters. We should do the same.
September 2, 2020
Banning predatory super-trawlers would be a good start given the massive increase in time spent fishing in protected waters in 2020 over 2019. May I ask if you intend to sign the open letter on banning supertrawlers, currently signed by 82 MPs, and which seems to be gaining more and more cross-party support?
As certain fish fetch lower prices in the UK, requiring most if not all of the fish to be landed in the UK would reduce income for the industry. So long as the fish are caught by British boats, or if licences are available then by properly licenced boats, why not allow them to be landed where most profit can be made? If the EU choose to tarrif the ports to make landing fish in the EU uneconomic, then there’s more fish for the UK and that is simply be the market in action.
September 2, 2020
Fully agree with your post today John. We have had our fishing industry trashed. We must get much of it back. The biggest concern for me is the large factory ships coming into our waters and depleting stocks at an alarming rate. They do immense damage to the ocean floor and other species of marine mammals. I just hope Boris is serious about Brexit because it could be the last chance the Tories have of getting many traditional votes in the future. We have had the wool pulled over our eyes too many times.
September 2, 2020
Fisheries have nothing whatsoever to do with trade deals, and we must refuse to link the two. Offer the EU a take it or leave it Canada deal with a deadline, and when the deadline passes walk. We already acquiesced to the EU’s insistence on completing the Withdrawal Agreement before discussing future relationships, and got shafted as a result. I’m not saying by the way that we should be unsympathetic to the EU’s coastal nations in allocating quotas, just that we should stand up and stop being bullied.
September 2, 2020
Indeed – and the same is true of immigration matters. Expect India to try and work the issue into any FTA negotiations. My advice: refuse point-blank.
September 2, 2020
Agreed – the Indian Government want freedom of movement and should be sent packing.
September 2, 2020
I think that the UK should denounce large chunks of the Withdrawal Agreement because it runs counter to a States sovereignty and the EU has not, in any shape or form, negotiated in good faith over the future relationship.
As to fishing as the EU has refused to negotiate in an honest and respectful manner, then the total allowable catch should be set so low that UK boats will be able to catch the lot. Let the EU fishing communities suffer but let it be known that when the EU or individual states will negotiate in good faith and respect UK sovereignty a different outcome is possible.
September 2, 2020
Big difference Canada wants to grow closer to the EU while we want to diverge away as far as possible possible. Canada is four thousand miles away while we are only twenty miles from the French coast- big difference
September 2, 2020
New insights into the way that Covid 19 affects the body have been generated by supercomputer analysis.
https://elemental.medium.com/a-supercomputer-analyzed-covid-19-and-an-interesting-new-theory-has-emerged-31cb8eba9d63
It gives further backing to the importance of taking Vitamin D now that summer is over. Why have we not heard from the Health Secretary about this – or did I miss it?
September 2, 2020
Who paid for the research? Always a relevant question.
September 2, 2020
If our government or their negotiators give so much as an inch on fishing they will have failed to get Brexit done because to have any involvement whatsoever from the EU in the allocation of fish quotas will put us back under the jurisdiction of the ghastly ECJ.
There is absolutely no problem with existing quotas as they can be allowed to expire as no quota is longer than two years and one year will have passed since last allocated.
There is nothing that the EU can offer us for any part of the control of our borders, waters and fish stocks
September 2, 2020
What would
“with government help with the financing of suitable vessels and encouragement to the banks to lend for the purpose”
actually entail?
Mr Sunak has turned down several billion in stamp duty in his unethical timing of this holiday to run the housing market hot prior to an increase in unemployment. The overdraft facility with BoE was expanded, rates were reduced to allow the Govt to balloon debt and pay resources inequitably to not produce, to stagnate. All encouragement to take personal responsibility to plan and save for a rainy day have been removed. Mr Sunak has borrowed to fund meals out, irrespective of health (though this does align with Hancock’s kneejerk destruction of PHE).
Under the unethical, destructive, central controlled actions of Mr Sunak, I can understand one might ask him to bung for a few fishing boats; but the destruction of the market economy, the destruction of the mixed economy, that Mr Sunak has carried out must surely stop somewhere.
September 2, 2020
Will you make quotas issued to UK boat skippers non tradable, so they can’t be sold off to large modern foreign boats? Otherwise, the UK/EU fishing scene will look very similar to what it is now. Quotas must be use them or lose them.
September 2, 2020
Agree. This is absolutely essential
September 2, 2020
NO QUOTAS!
September 3, 2020
So how are you going to control over fishing anywhere without quotas?
September 4, 2020
If boats go out and keep catching small harvests and auction prices are poor then boats will either not go out or they will try different areas.
September 2, 2020
Firstly, we must leave the Common Fishing Policy in its entirety. This means that all quotas must be declared null and void; the buying and selling of quotas, especially by favoured continental fishermen is a pernicious practice as pernicious as the buying and selling of carbon credits under the SavethePlanet scheme to destroy Western Civilisation.
There have been claims by English-haters that the fishing industry is not important, economically: take a bow, Brussels.
Firstly, our fishing industry has been grievously damaged by the CAP as our fishermen were not awarded sufficient quotas to engage in fishing economically and were then encouraged to sell their quotas and receive grants from Brussels (our money) to scrap their trawlers, whilst Spaniards were given generous grants for new trawlers (our money again).
Secondly, fishing is a primary added value industry that not only assists our balance of payments but also supports local businesses including boat-building and chandleries and their suppliers.
Would it not be nice to see our ancestral fishing ports and hamlets thriving again rather than being many of the most depressed areas of the country? Let the fishermen catch fish according to their schedule, not one inflicted on them by Brussels.
The discussions with the EU must be about mutual trade not continuing to thieve our fish.
Once our ancestral fishing grounds and our fishing industry are recovering, the government needs to promote the health benefits of eating fish and cooking it other than in Canola oil.
September 2, 2020
Well said!
September 2, 2020
+1
September 2, 2020
The North Sea is grossly over fished and needs radical measures to restore fish stocks and the Marine ecology. The EU and its CFP has been a disaster for the seas, as you can witness if you travel to the Mediterranean which is virtually as barren as a brick. Also note how the EU after the Brexit vote vastly increased the Danish quota for sand eels which are now being decimated as a result.
As the EU will not be sensible and play nice we should use the Law of the Sea to set an ‘total allowable catch’ so low that it matches the UK fishing fleet. We should require all trawlers to be flagged here, crewed here and land here, and have a majority UK ownership.
September 2, 2020
If you are the same Andy you are for once pointing in the right direction.
September 2, 2020
Please, please, please could you distinguish your identity from that of the poster who would like all elderly people dead?
I never know whether to bother reading a post if it’s headed just ‘Andy’!
September 2, 2020
+1
September 2, 2020
No – – the EU and everybody else foreign should be banned from catching anything!
Then over some time as the British fishing fleet builds up again, we can witness the growth of fish stocks currently being trawled to empty.
September 2, 2020
What’s up Andy!!!
A really sensible comment š
September 2, 2020
I agree with all that but there is a lack of determination and expression of forcefullness. The word ‘should’ ought to be replaced with ‘must’ in 2,3,4,5, and 6. ‘Must’ only appears in 1.
Why?
September 2, 2020
Have just listened to PMQs, great emphasis by the government and the BBC on “”U” turns. Covid 19 is a war. When you start taking incoming from a new direction you respond to silence it. Seems to me that the opposition and the BBC are clinging to this latest “U” turn phrase like it is the new Poll Tax. A liferaft to carry the opposition through a period when they are incapable technically or logically to contribute anything of substance. Talking heads the lot of them.
September 2, 2020
OT but amusing from Guido, BBC U-turn “viewers will be āfree to sing along at homeā
Edited/truncated for a bit more humor
September 2, 2020
Yes if Bo Jo was the man he should be , well he wouldāve pulled the plug on this farce, with the EU.
What about these over Large trawlers coming over here killing the grounds , it would be too much ask if we are doing anything about that ?
Exactly the same for all the illegal immigrants ?
In other words, read by a blind man , O No, we only do as the E U tells us.
This is simply because the Whole Establishment are Remainers .
Just like the civil service, the whole damn lot is working for the other side, has been for decades no mystery, just the usual Treacherous behaviour
September 2, 2020
Reports of up to 25 boats full of people getting here today – -with some deliberately evading the Border Force people, getting here, and getting wet through in the sea. How many are we supposed to keep letting in – PLUS inevitably – their whole families??
What has the new chap done so far about stopping this farce – apparently nothing.
September 2, 2020
No-one in the Conservative Party ever does anything about illegal immigration. It’s a disgrace.
September 3, 2020
but the French are doing their best.
September 2, 2020
Excellent John.
September 2, 2020
Well Iāve finally bit the bullet and told TV licensing I donāt need a licence. I rarely watch live TV so not watching it at all will not be a hardship. I used to watch Newsnight, the Daily Politics, Andrew Marr from time to time but doing so winds me up. Especially Maitless on Newsnight. So, goodbye BBC, you wonāt be missed. I can still listen to Radio 4. It annoys me I canāt now watch Sky news but thatās a small price to pay. Plenty of web sites to get news from.
September 2, 2020
Well done. Join the soon-to-be-majority!
September 3, 2020
Sky News – or the BLM Channel – is even worse than the BBC so that is no loss.
September 2, 2020
Excellent John
September 2, 2020
Well said John. Pity you couldn’t say it in Parliament.
September 2, 2020
As exclusively predicted by me and others, the cut in stamp duty has caused house prices to go up faster than at any time since prudent Gordon (I will not allow a house price boom to put at risk the sustainability of the recovery) Brown was chancellor in 2004. As house prices seem to be on a ratchet when they go up (once up, no-one will let them down), the Tories, YET AGAIN, have helped to price young people out of the market.
September 2, 2020
Why am I no longer permitted to comment, Sir John?
September 2, 2020
Ah, I am now. What did I do differently?
September 2, 2020
Nothing – give Sir John some time to go through the new ones to select or reject.
September 2, 2020
I’m having trouble getting my comments accepted. Unless they are being shuffled out of view.
September 2, 2020
Excellent comments, Sir John. A great pity you were not able to speak in parliament
September 2, 2020
I recollect as a small person staying at my Granma’s in Ecclesall Road, visiting the fish and chip shop for supper. The fish was usually cod and big and succulent quite unlike today’s offerings.
September 2, 2020
we need new policies for many sections of the economy.
eg a new tech sector policy is badly needed.
September 2, 2020
Are the Government listening?
September 2, 2020
A new fishing business, but they lost their way in the Channel?
More than 400 migrants have crossed the English Channel in small boats – a record for a single day. Border Force has intercepted 409 people, including young children, on board 27 boats, with several further vessels still being dealt with. Some of the migrants were carrying children too young to walk.
Boris Johnson earlier on Wednesday said the UK had become “a target and a magnet for those who would exploit vulnerable people in this way”.
Some 145 people had crossed the Channel in 18 small boats on Tuesday.
September 2, 2020
Thanks to the home office another 409+ illegal immigrants have landed on our shores today
September 2, 2020
You have got to tell the government that the amount of illegal and legal immigration happening is completely and utterly unacceptable. If they dont smell the unrest in the country they are making a massive mistake. Sure Ms May got away with saying one thing and doing another for years, its not going to wash the way its going on now.
September 2, 2020
Unacceptable to whom? This is what our Establishment wants. No effort will be spared to fend off any opposition to the Great Replacement with empty waffle about criminal gangs and talks with the French. Why do you think the UN Migration Compact was signed by our leaders? Mass migration is ‘necessary and desirable’.
September 2, 2020
Agree with all of that, but with this liberal government…. š
The one thing they have got right(ish) so far is Brexit. We need to leave on WTO terms now, no “concessions” or “compromises” since they can only entail giving away our sovereignty in key areas from where we are now in these “negotiations”.
Fishing is just one aspect. I hope that after all this is done and we are on WTO terms, that we will withdraw from the Withdrawal Agreement. Article 50 clearly states that the WA must be based on the future relationship, not the other way round, so we would only have agreed to a re-sequencing in the belief that a FTA would be forthcoming.
If no satisfactory FTA exists on 1/1/21 then we must cancel that treaty. There would be little international opprobrium for the above reasons and also because it hasn’t really come into force yet.
September 2, 2020
I heard the ministerial statement on the Dinghyist problem today. There was no mention of the dinghyists being sent back to their countries of origin. Why not?
September 3, 2020
They just don’t care
September 3, 2020
The elephant looks like an ant to some people.
September 3, 2020
wise words
September 2, 2020
Are the Australians and New Zealanders demand fishing rights in our territorial waters for a trade deal?
September 2, 2020
With an estimated 6,000 migrants living in and around the Calais camp 2015 and 7,500 arrivals to the UK coast by small boat since January 2020 our inability to turn away illegal immigrants is having a pull effect ā more and more will comeā¦the message is clear the door to benefits is open
September 2, 2020
Itās bugger all of GDP, the rights have been sold off by the families that owned them, we donāt eat most of whatās in our own waters (yes John knows this because like me he shops in Waitrose, purveyors of lovely Icelandic cod and tasty Nordic halibut). Yes another dead cat (dead herring?) for the plastic patriots of Wokingham.
September 3, 2020
That doesn’t explain why the bulk of the UK Cod comes from China, other there isn’t enough in UK waters to go round. It is only what we call ‘odd’ species that we don’t eat..
Waitrose fresh fish, is actually as they say in the small print frozen fish thawed out. The last purveyor of actual fresh fish in the area was ‘Frosts’ which closed down last year.
September 3, 2020
Nick
Read the comments to Margaret Howards post at 7.22 it was all to do with too small a quota to make a living that made fishermen give up.
September 3, 2020
Are we able to enforce a policy of British ships for British fish in the face of hostile and non-compliant continental nations? Do we have sufficient patrol boats and warships?
I suggest that we no longer accept the right of the EC to negotiate for EU Member States in this matter. We need to negotiate with Holland, France and Spain, the continental nations most involved. It may involve a minor concession for a few transitional years but no more than that.
September 3, 2020
The EU sees itself as a Country, they have a central government, and an over arching legal/courts system. They are now moving to a single tax system and a EU army. The places you mention are no longer countries but subordinate states as such it would be frowned upon for them to have a sensible brain of their own.
September 3, 2020
They don’t see themselves as a Country when it comes to counting Wuhan virus deaths and cases, do they? Suddenly it is back to individual nations so America and Brazil can look bad.
September 3, 2020
To illustrate the bizarre double standards of the EU controlling fishing. Last year I found myself in Bruges, there is a very nice restaurant there the Cafedraal. I opted for the Dover Sole. Really nice fish very well cooked, but, it was 2 whole fish each about 10cm square.
This is the size of the fish that in the UK wouldn’t be caught far to young and immature, the UK net size would stop fish this young being caught. As an immature fish it wouldn’t have reached the stage of being able to reproduce. So catching it, destroys future stock.
There is a shortage of fish either we farm it responsibly or never see it on the menu again. The EU has shown its self in neglect on this. It is hoped with the UK controlling its own stocks fishing will last a bit longer. Either way those that rely on the trade will have to adjust there just isn’t the capacity in UK waters that the EU promotes, there is just destruction
September 3, 2020
Our fish is ours to export and it will certainly be in demand.
Many fishermen went bankrupt in the 1970s when we joined the EU.
Many protected marine areas should be set up to maintain safe areas for fish stock conservation.
We are an island nation with great seas that should produce a great export. We gave away our family silver in the 1970s and we have taken it back.
Other nations must pay for it, as it is now our export and we will look after it.
I read with dismay that Denmark was allowed to take several years quota from Dogger Bank leaving our wildlife without sand eels because we were leaving the EU.
It is a major resource that should be managed to this islands benefit.
September 3, 2020
Why not publish – its BBC ‘facts’ after all!
NHS has REFUSED treatment to friends of ours, and everybody knows people did not want to attend hospital fearing catching Covid.
September 3, 2020
I read Andy playing a dogged innings, while Martin seems to have retired hurt?
MH gets stumped every shot trying for all parts of the field.
September 3, 2020
Agree entirely.
Also, fish stocks need to be conserved and given time to recover.
Underlying all this, is an issue of our sovereignty which the EU are attacking.
Our government must yield not one iota.
As the EU’s position is that a deal that excludes their extra-territorial demands is unacceptable to them, then WTO becomes the best outcome available to them.
The EU should be pleased with “no-deal” as the best it is going to get.
September 3, 2020
Just what are we to call this Parliament , I am at a loss.
Just when will you even begin carrying out you so call Manifesto.
A total disgrace, and could not care a damn .
Just when can those of us , all of us get what we voted for .
How on Earth can we get what we voted for.
How can we get Justice from this massive betrayal in broad daylight every single day of the year .
More and more thousands and more thousands week in week out , and we are using our boats to bring them in and you and I are funding it.
We have much needed charity here thank you. Our Veterans for starters, and plenty of others Sir John.
I think things are so bad that I can not see how a decent individual can belong to this utter daily farse Of a Government Every day the sovereign people of GB get to watch Remainers doing only what was in there Manifesto .
It is nothing short of Criminal, we sit and watch every day our Betrayal
September 3, 2020
Just what are we to call this Parliament , I am at a loss.
How about inept (so far).
September 3, 2020
Yes to all six.
The remainiacs always make the philistine argument that we should give up our fish as they are only a tiny part of our GDP and should be bartered away for the City. They never admit the reason they are a tiny part, which is that our once mighty fishing industry has been reduced to almost nothing by the EU. It must be built up again, and the grounds restored to health.
September 3, 2020
Furthermore, if our fishing grounds are so paltry in worth, why are the coastal Continentals risking the FTA to hang on to them?
September 4, 2020
The case for better fish conservation and the re-allocation of suitably-reduced quota to UK vessels is unarguable, given our return to being an independent coastal state.
It is clear that the EU is just trying to blackmail us into accepting the status-quo by refusing to negotiate. They know only too well that they will have no allocation whatsoever, unless they compromise. Trouble is, the EU doesn’t do compromise, it just tries to bully others into submission. History should have told them that that won’t work with Albion.
It seems blindingly obvious that the basis of a deal should be that British Fishing boats catch the vast majority of the fish, like Cod and Plaice, that we consume in the UK. This is currently almost all being caught in British waters by EU boats.
In order to make this transition, we would have to reshape our fishing fleet. Currently we have 15,000 inshore fishing boats under 10m in length, but less that 2,000 of the larger offshore boats over 10m that we would need.
To catch and land most of the fish we consume here, we will therefore need to build a fleet of larger boats and train the necessary crews.
This was always going to take time so, three years ago, I suggested that the government should fund the design and construction of a fleet of suitable boats which should be leased at favourable terms to British skippers as long as they are crewed by British fishermen with a number of British apprentices on each boat.
Starting now, the transition would take at least five years, maybe as long as a decade to complete. There is therefore plenty of room for negotiation, if only the EU is willing to give up its ridiculous and arrogant demand to maintain the status quo indefinitely.