OFF THE HOOK!
Trawlermen rejoice at end of hated quotas... and return of the great British fishing f leet
FISHERMEN have hailed the referendum result as they looked forward to the end of Brussels regulations that campaigners say have shackled the industry for decades.
While other areas of Britain’s economy have feared the consequences of a Leave vote, many fishing campaigners believe they will thrive without the constraints of Europe’s red tape.
Critics have claimed that the EU has crippled the fishing industry with unfair quotas.
They believe Britain will be able to get a better deal by setting its own rules on quotas, while it will also be free to negotiate itself over fishing access with other countries.
Under the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), European fishing fleets are all given equal access to waters and fishing grounds that are more than 12 nautical miles off the coasts of member states. Brussels uses a complicated formula to dictate the amount of each type of fish that individual countries can catch, and critics claim this has led to Britain being unfairly allocated lower quotas than other nations.
Nine in ten British fishermen were expected to vote for Brexit in the referendum, according to a survey by the University of Aberdeen that was published earlier this month.
Aaron Brown, of Fishing For Leave, a group representing 400 vessels, said: ‘The industry is over the moon.
‘There are grown men who have broken down in tears at it as they’ve seen their whole industry put to the sword.
‘They’ve felt vilified and persecuted by an out-of-touch elitist establishment which has sold us down the river. The Brexit vote for fishing is the same for the rest of the country, it’s a huge injection of an ability to decide our own affairs and take Britain forward.’
The 29-year-old, who has worked as a fisherman for ten years, added: ‘On the back of scientific recommendation, we can set our own quotas and our own management policy.
‘We can enter into bilateral constructive agreements with the other coastal states to manage fisheries for community benefit, rather than what’s happened in Europe where fishing has basically been used as a bartering chip on the chess board of further EU integration.’
The number of fishing vessels in the UK decreased by nine per cent from 2004 to 2014 – from 7,022 to 6,383 – according to Government figures.
Bertie Armstrong, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, which represents 500 vessels, said his organisation would look to hold talks with the Scottish Government on the next steps.
He said: ‘There is an air of jubilation at the prospect of, at last, exiting from the Common Fisheries Policy and being master of our own destiny with regard to setting fishing opportunity and regulation.’
Jimmy Buchan, who starred in the BBC television series Trawlermen, said: ‘Obviously, the fishing industry is absolutely delighted with the outcome, it’s what they’ve campaigned for for many, many years.’
The 56-year-old, who has been a fisherman for 40 years and skippers a boat in Peterhead, north-east Scotland, added: ‘We
‘Fishermen were left on the scrapheap’
yogurts, muesli, pies and puddings. But one of the biggest concerns to food producers after Brexit is over cheap foreign food produced to low standards flooding the UK market.
Miss Batters said: ‘There is a big concern that the Government will do trade deals with South American countries where there is cheaper production costs and animal welfare standards are lower.
‘For example, they use antibiotic growth-promoting drugs in their cattle, which we banned 20 years ago.
‘We don’t need their beef, we need to support our beef industry not ship beef here from across the world.
‘Being a part of the European trading bloc we trade to a shared set of standards and the UK has been in the driving seat. We have a safe and sound food supply chain. We have food traceability and country of origin labelling.’
But former Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary Owen Paterson, a leading Brexit supporter, said on BBC’s Farming Today yesterday that leaving the EU presented a great opportunity to boost British farming. ‘This is tremendous for our farming industry and for our countryside,’ he said. ‘This gives us the freedom to repatriate policy. Our self-sufficiency in food is down to 59 per cent, I am told. We need to grow more food.’
Mr Paterson, who did not rule out now returning to the Government, called on farmers to use the summer to help Ministers draw up ‘a new forward-looking policy to grow more food and boost the rural economy’.
NFU leaders are also anxious to grasp opportunities posed by Brexit.
An emergency meeting for its ruling council is to take place in London on Friday to discuss priorities for action.
Miss Batters said: ‘It’s time again to dig for Britain and produce the raw ingredients for this seismic and cultural change in the UK.
‘We will no longer have to allow foreign firms to compete for public service contracts so British farmers and firms can supply food to prisons, schools, hospitals, armed services and Whitehall canteens.’
‘We risk losing farms and relying on imports’