FISHING NEEDS A CZAR TO KEEP THE FLEET AFLOAT

LAST week’s scenes of fresh fish being dumped or given away because of customs restrictions at Channel ports were as disgraceful as they were predictable. A Conservative government had again failed an iconic British industry.

And since the Scottish fleet accounts for some 64 per cent of the UK catch, the Tories were seen to have failed Scottish fishermen and processors in particular.

The Brexit cliffhanger at the end of last year was never about whether the Tories would betray our fishermen. That was a given. What it was about was the scale of the betrayal. Not about whether our negotiators would concede to the demands of the French, Spanish, Danes and Irish, more about how these defeats could be spun as victories.

The Prime Minister, at his blustering best on Christmas Eve, declared we had ‘taken back control of our coastal waters … and regained sovereignty’. Taking back control in Boris-speak meant allowing EU fleets to continue to catch 50 per cent instead of 75 per cent of the fish from UK waters for a transition period of five-and-a-half years. Worse still, at the end of the transition period, if the UK tries to further restrict access to European vessels, we face punitive EU tariffs. This was regaining control?

Fishermen and processors alike had been realistic about the UK being forced to give ground in the Brexit talks.

CLEARLY an industry that accounted for less than 1 per cent of the UK’s gross national product couldn’t be allowed to get in the way of a multi-billion-pound trade agreement or a PM hell-bent on getting the deal in time for Christmas.

But there were grounds for optimism. The Tories under Ted Heath had signed Britain up to the disastrous Common Fisheries Policy, then under David Cameron had reversed the Scottish-led policy to negotiate withdrawal from the CFP. Surely there would not be a third sell-out. After all, Michael Gove, a key figure in the negotiations, was the adopted son of an Aberdeen fish merchant, driven out of business by lack of fish under CFP catch quotas.

But, incredibly, what regaining control of our coastal waters meant was reducing, not increasing, Scottish catching quotas for no fewer than eight demersal species. An outraged letter from the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations to Boris Johnson declared: ‘It is not that in the end that you were forced to concede in the face of an intransigent and powerful opponent that has caused such fury across our industry, it is that you have tried to present the agreement as a success which it is patently not’.

And only a fortnight into the new trading regime, it transpires that there were no firm plans to ensure that high-value scallops, langoustines, crabs and lobsters, mainly from Scotland, wouldn’t be left rotting at the quayside because of red tape.

A vaunted £100million government package for the industry – derisory when you consider that a new purser trawler costs more than £50million – has yet to be confirmed. Once again the Government’s inflated promises have failed to address the problem that fishermen and processors are facing – not ruin further down the road, but ruin now.

Donna Fordyce, chief executive of Seafood Scotland, is sensibly demanding a grace period of six months to allow all sides in this shambles to allow the electronic systems that process the paperwork for seafood exports to be brought up to speed.

So who is going to get a grip of the situation?

Douglas Ross has made much of being his own man as leader of the Scottish Conservatives. As MP for Moray, with its long fishing heritage, he has been vociferous in pressing the Government to take urgent action.

Yet it seems that he, Ruth Davidson and Alister Jack have failed to convince Mr Johnson of the disastrous political implications of this latest betrayal of the industry. Has the PM forgotten the price previous Tory administrations were made to pay for earlier perceived betrayals? Replaced in all their coastal constituencies by the SNP in 1987, Conservatives were wiped out in Scotland ten years later.

There is little doubt that the prospect of leaving the CFP after the Brexit referendum resulted in the Scottish Tory Westminster revival, when fishing and farming voters united to turf Alex Salmond out of his Gordon constituency in 2017. Polling suggests the SNP could have a majority of 13 at May’s Holyrood election, and the Tories risk losing several of the coastal seats they fought so hard to win.

BUT it’s still not too late for the Tories to regain the traditional support of fisher folk if they back up their bluster with hard cash and a far-sighted plan for restructuring the industry. The fleet needs rebuilding and it cannot be done without serious government support.

What’s needed is a Fisheries Czar. I suggest somebody gets on the phone to Sir Ian Wood. Grandson of a skipper from Aberdeen’s Torry and retired from running his international oil service company, there’s nobody better qualified to help the UK exploit the new fisheries opportunities this Tory government seems determined to throw away. In the process, Sir Ian might just save the Union.

Ted Brocklebank was Tory fisheries spokesman in the Scottish parliament in 2003-7. He resigned from the role after David Cameron changed the party’s stance on renegotiating the CFP.