Cod War lessons for winning the Brexit battle

sir – Your Leading Article (June 7) is right that we need to get ready for No Deal in the face of European Union intransigence. As well as measures for the economy and customs infrastructure, we must prepare to police our exclusive economic zone.

Britain’s eight Royal Navy offshore patrol vessels would be too few to police an area almost three times that of the UK, if faced with the vast French, Spanish and other national fishing fleets simply ignoring the law.

In the Cod Wars of the Sixties and Seventies, the Icelandic coastguard flagrantly breached international law. Royal Navy vessels were forbidden to fire at the offenders, and our warships – built and refined for speed and low radar signature – came off badly in collisions with Icelandic vessels with commercial hulls. We lost all three Cod Wars, and consequently much of our fishing industry. Royal Marine helicopter boarding parties could be deployed occasionally. But trying to board vessels equipped with highpressure hoses, perhaps in heavy seas, would be dangerous.

Fortunately, the Icelandic coastguard demonstrated – illegally in its case – that there is another way. Small but robust fast craft, equipped to cut lines, can put a fishing boat out of business for a whole mission.

We could buy and convert such craft immediately to supplement our flotilla of patrol vessels, especially as the support fleet for the declining North Sea oil industry offers cheap options for second-hand purchase.

Such an investment would send an unmistakable message to Brussels that we mean business.

Sir Julian Brazier

Canterbury, Kent