Fishing policy: the next Brexit battle
“There could be troubled waters ahead,” said Chris Morris on BBC News. Fishing has “always been an emotional issue in the UK’s relationship with the EU” – and as the two sides last week set out competing visions of a future trade relationship, it became clear the subject would once again become a key battleground. Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, said that if Britain wants a close free-trade agreement, with no tariffs or quotas, it will have to give the EU fishing fleet the same level of access to British waters that it now enjoys. But in an uncompromising speech at the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, Boris Johnson dismissed that outright. At present, more than 60% of the fish landed in British waters go to foreign boats. Any future trade agreement, he said, must be based on the understanding that “British fishing grounds are first and foremost for British boats”.
The Government’s plan to “take back control” of UK waters has been welcomed by much of the industry, said Barney White-Spunner in The Daily Telegraph. Its new Fisheries bill is designed to consign the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy to history, and to usher in “changes that some British fishermen have desired since the 1970s”. Reallocating the quotas that EU vessels enjoy, which are widely regarded as very unfair, has become “something of a holy grail of the Brexit campaign”. But we need to tread carefully. Brussels will “fight fire with fire”, and it could easily impose import tariffs that would, for instance, “cripple” our entire fish-processing industry.
The Prime Minister’s hard line may please the “larger-scale, rich, noisy part” of the fishing industry, said John Lichfield in The Guardian – but not everyone will be better off. On the contrary, much of the UK industry – “broadly the small-scale, ecologically sound part” – depends on frictionless overnight trade with the EU. Two-thirds of British shellfish and crustaceans are sold to the continent – an arrangement that only works because of the EU single market. The best hope now is that these are opening positions, and that common sense, self-interest and international law will force a compromise, similar to that which Norway has negotiated with the EU. That would be awkward for Johnson, after his tough talk – but it would have benefits for other industries, “from car-making to pharmaceuticals to farming”, which are sure to lose out if he goes to war over fish. A barebones trade deal would not only “sink a large part of Britain’s fishing fleet”, it would also badly hurt British farmers and factories.