Leo McKinstry
agreements that restricted British access. But this year negotiations broke down, with the explosive consequences that followed. In place of a deal, the French resorted to thuggery and intimidation.
Apart from its brutality, what is so offensive about the Gallic behaviour is its gross hypocrisy. For while the French wail about British intrusion off their coast, they eagerly exploit the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy to harvest catches in British waters. Indeed, due to the perversity of this policy French boats have an 84 per cent share of the cod in the Channel, yet the UK has just a nine per cent share, even though cod is one of our national dishes.
As Derek Meredith, owner of two scallop boats that operate out of Brixham in Devon, asks: “How would the French feel if we were smashing up all the French boats that are allowed to come up to six miles in our waters?”
His question highlights the shambles of the EU’s approach. For Britain and much of Europe, the Common Fisheries Policy has been a disaster that has hammered coastal communities while encouraging the degradation of the marine environment. Instead of being allowed to look after our own fish, our industry is forced to abide by dodgy quotas conceived by bureaucratic haggling in the corridors of Brussels.
As the senior Tory MP Owen Paterson puts it, this farcical system compels “fishermen to throw back more dead fish into the sea than they land”.
The quotas are also deeply unfair on Britain, since we have 48 per cent of Europe’s waters yet are allowed only a 25 per cent share of our stock. It is an injustice which means that foreign fishermen have taken £3.5billion of British fish every year since we signed up to the Common Fisheries Policy.
Fishing used to be part of Britain’s economic lifeblood but once we became entangled in the EU, the industry went into severe decline. Since the mid-1990s the workforce has shrunk from 20,000 to just 12,000 and the number of vessels has dropped by 30 per cent over the same period. Britain was once a net exporter of fish but the Common Fisheries Policy has turned us to a net importer – an absurdity for a maritime nation such as ours.
But there is hope for the future thanks to the Brexit vote. Independence offers Britain the chance to take back control of our territorial waters, thereby reviving our fishing industry and allowing us to manage our stocks in accordance with our own needs, not the diktats of Brussels. Yet that is dependent on the Government enacting a real Brexit, not the kind of fudge envisioned by the Chequers strategy.
OUR fishermen were betrayed badly when Britain signed up for the Common Market. Another such betrayal would be unforgiveable.
Yet it is precisely the prospect of British freedom that infuriates the French. They cannot abide a challenge to EU dominance because Brussels is partly their creation and they benefit from the status quo.
The prospect of change is the cue for Gallic intransigence, as we see not only in the protests by the French fishermen but also in the uncooperative stance of Michel Barnier, chief EU negotiator for Brexit.
Despite this antagonism we should not cave in. Our rights as a nation are clear.
‘Take back control of territorial waters’