May to ban Europeans trawling British seas

CAMPAIGNERS to regain control of our fishing waters after Brexit yesterday hailed signs that Theresa May is prepared to ban European Union boats from British seas.

Leaving the EU will see Britain automatically leave the bloc’s Common Fisheries Policy of quotas.

But the industry warns the UK will still be powerless to stop EU fleets accessing British marine stocks unless it also scraps the 1964 London Convention.

That treaty gives 12 other EU nations access to fishing waters between six and 12 nautical miles off the British coastline.

It was reported yesterday that Mrs May is poised to give notice that Britain will pull out of the convention in two years – coinciding with Britain’s departure from the EU.

That would let her ban EU fishermen from our waters if Brexit talks collapse because there would then be no legal basis for EU fleets to fish British waters.

Ukip MEP and fisheries spokesman Mike Hookem said it was “a victory in the long hard fight to regain Britain’s fishing industry”.

Speaking in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, with fishermen affected by EU rules, Mr Hookem added: “Fishing communities across the country voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU after seeing first-hand the destruction the Common Fisheries Policy has wrought on the fishing industry and coastal towns.”