Deluded By Fishing Dreams And Brexit

GRIMSBY, England — Not many fishermen are left in this town in North East England, once home to one of the largest fishing fleet in Britain, with about 500 trawlers. But nostalgia for the fishing industry permeates the place. So it was no surprise when 70 percent of residents voted to leave the European Union. Britain’s fishermen have complained for years about regulations imposed on all members.

The surprise came later when a local business group began lobbying to avoid the tariffs, customs and the other burdens of leaving the Union. Social media scorn ensued. In thousands of tweets across the country, the people of Grimsby were derided as dummies and hypocrites. Either they wanted the upsides of Brexit with none of its costs, or they didn’t grasp the harm that leaving would cause until it was too late.

“Grimsby residents branded ‘ idiots’ for Brexit vote as seafood industry seeks free trade deal,” read a headline in a local newspaper.

The vote to leave illustrates the way emotions can change politics and affect the economy, and how the romance of a declining industrial past often eclipses the interests of new and expanding businesses.

“Some industries that are economically insignificant have enormous public resonance,” said Bronwen Maddox, director of the Institute for Government, an independent think tank in London. “And because of that, they have political influence that is way out of proportion.”

It isn’t fishermen who are pushing for a kind of exemption from Brexit. It is a group of fish processors, an industry that is thriving in Grimsby, where fish from all over the world are gutted, packaged and sold to wholesalers. This town of around 88,000 is a hub in a global supply chain.

“We haven’t fished here for 25 years,” said Simon Dwyer, who leads Seafood Grimsby & Humber Group,