Never mind the scallops, here’s the big issue

The row over scallops has laid bare tensions over who is entitled to fish where in the Channel. But it is also a symptom of deep-seated anxiety among French fishermen as to how Brexit will affect their livelihoods.

This is because the UK is leaving the EU’S Common Fisheries Policy, which for decades has granted them very generous access to UK waters.

This will change as the Government will decide who is allowed to fish in British zones, where some Frenchmen spend up to 80 per cent of their time.

Along with the pledge to grant an extra £350million for the NHS, major gains for the British fishing industry were touted as one of the key reasons to vote for Brexit in the referendum.

This is a terrifying prospect for fishermen in ports such as Boulogne and Le Havre, who risk incurring severe losses if denied the same level of access to UK waters after Brexit.

French unions are aggressively lobbying the EU to neuter any British post-brexit policy to ensure it stays as close as possible to the status quo.

Sources say despite the promise to create a fully independent post-brexit policy, the Government is privately planning to use UK waters as leverage in trade talks, for example, to offer access to fishing zones in exchange for tariff-free access to EU markets.

This is because, in a quirk of British fishing policy, the UK exports more fish to EU markets than the total amount of fish that it imports.

Meanwhile, the EU will look to trade access to its own waters in exchange for access to UK fishing grounds, mindful of the fact that the English fleet fishes in Irish, Icelandic, Norwegian and French waters.

But if EU access to UK waters is restricted, Brussels will reciprocate and ban English vessels from fishing off Ireland or Norway, and potentially slapping tariffs on British fish.

So does the British Government forge ahead with the hugely popular promise of a new fishing industry that puts Britain first? Or does it concede that French fears could prove invaluable leverage in Brexit trade talks that could extract crucial trade concessions from Brussels? If it does, the British might be tempted to once again sacrifice fishermen for the sake of a decent trade deal with Brussels.