EU trawlers face being banned from our waters
FOREIGN trawlers will be banned from UK waters if there is no “fair” fisheries deal, Theresa May said yesterday.
The Prime Minister underlined her commitment to strike a new agreement with the EU over fishing rights and quotas, insisting she was “delivering” on a Brexit for the industry.
Mrs May also suggested she would not contemplate another independence referendum until Britain has left the bloc.
She was speaking during a visit to Scotland to sell her controversial EU deal.
Ahead of a factory visit in Renfrewshire, Mrs May responded to a letter from all 13 Conservative MPs north of the border, warning that they could not back her draft deal unless she can provide them with more reassurances over the future of fishing.
Pledge
She told them she had a “resolute” commitment to the sector and reiterated Britain would leave the hated Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and become an independent coastal nation, deciding “who can fish in our waters and on what terms”.
Mrs May also insisted that if no agreement is reached with the EU over fisheries by 2020, the default position is that EU vessels would have no access to UK waters.
Earlier, the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation called on all parliamentarians at Westminster and Holyrood to sign a pledge backing its demand that full control of UK waters be taken back from the EU.
The three-part pledge urged them to vote against any arrangement that would extend the UK’s membership of the CFP beyond December 2020.
They were also challenged to block anything that prevents the UK from negotiating as a full independent coastal state and uphold the UK’s right to complete control over its own waters.
Trawlermen’s leader Bertie Armstrong insisted anything other than “full, unfettered sovereignty over our own waters would be crossing a red line for the fishing industry”.
The 27 remaining EU member states issued a joint declaration on Sunday that a fisheries agreement was a “priority” and should “build on” their existing access and quota.
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has also threatened to prevent the UK leaving the customs union backstop without generous access to fishing grounds.