Our maritime communities are on the verge of spectacular revival due to Brexit

EU fleets taking two-thirds of catches will have to end, says Simon Collins

Far from collapsing in exhaustion after the frenetic, shrill politics of the past three years, our politicians and the entire media commentariat are apparently undaunted by the prospect of more Brexit hysteria, plots and counter-plots once they come back from their summer holidays. It’s as if successive referendums, elections and party leadership contests have left them on a gigantic sugar high, with no wish to come back down again.

It has certainly been an extraordinary time. Eventually the historians will fill whole libraries with accounts of what happened, and why. And it is not so hard to understand that for people to whom politics are the most fascinating thing on the planet, more of the same is earnestly to be desired. Wheeling, dealing and general mayhem around the EU (Withdrawal) Bill and other bits of Brexit legislation are therefore fair game.

Except it’s not a game. Charles de Gaulle once claimed that “politics are too serious a matter to be left to politicians”, and the coming months could well bear him out.

The fishing industry stands to gain a great deal from Brexit, and it should not come as a surprise to anyone that we’d like the legislation that makes it happen to sail through the parliament unimpeded. But other sectors that face a more nuanced future as a result of the EU referendum may want the same, if only for reasons of clarity and visibility. Irre- spective of the way you voted, you cannot plan the future of your business without some idea of what its legal and regulatory position will be in a couple of years’ time.

Our maritime communities are on the verge of spectacular revival, with much of the benefit spreading out from some of Scotland’s more remote regions and islands. Fisheries that have hung on through so many difficult years are again turning to investment in boats and young people. While Brexit is not the only reason – burgeoning fish stocks in the northern North Sea have plenty to do with it too – leaving the EU ought to ensure that our own government controls access to our fishing grounds. The absurdity of EU fleets making off with almost two-thirds of catches in the UK’S Exclusive Economic Zone will have to end. We’re that close, which makes the prospect of politicians fiddling about with the Withdrawal Bill, the Fisheries Bill and the rest of it particularly exasperating. In Shetland, where the seafood sector drives a full-employment, dynamic economy and a thriving island community, the last thing we want is political fun and games. That means politicians and the media treating the Brexit legislation in a grown-up way, with proper scrutiny to ensure it actually does what it is intended to do but not adding or subtracting bits out of sheer devilment.

We all understand that oppositions are there to oppose, and there are very real constitutional issues

over devolved powers within the UK that will have to be addressed. But the politics-as-a-game crowd need to understand that while embarrassing or even bringing down governments is part of what parliamentary democracy does, there are a great many businesses out there – and not just in fishing – that would not appreciate further delay on the basic legal framework they will need.

Nobody is saying that the laws to be shifted over from the EU are perfect. Many are seriously flawed; others are mutually contradictory and some essentially unworkable. Despite its modest size in the overall jobs and GDP balance, fishing has been afflicted more than most by inane EU regulations, and it goes without saying that we would love the Brexit legislation to deal with all this nonsense in one go.

With the best will in the world, that won’t happen. Time is very short, and the priority must be to leave the EU with the big prize – full control over who fishes in our waters, for what, how and when – firmly secured. Other desirable things, such as an effective and reactive fisheries management regime and constitutional arrangements between the devolved administrations that make practical sense, will simply have to wait. Along with the political noise that is bound to come with them. These are serious times, and we need our politicians to calm down a little. Incredibly, some things matter more than how long the Prime Minister stays in office or who said what on the Today programme. There will be plenty of opportunity for all that later on; in the meantime, our fishing industry would expect a more statesmanlike sense of responsibility this autumn. Simon Collins, Executive officer, Shetland Fishermen’s Association