UK ‘will need to do fishing deal on access for EU fleet’
● Varadkar warns over EU markets ● Gove has already ruled out any deal
Boris Johnson will need to strike a fishing deal which allows EU states access to British waters in forthcoming Brexit trade talks, the Irish taoiseach has warned.
Leo Varadkar even hinted that Britain’s fishing industry could find itself frozen out of EU markets if no deal is struck.
UK Environment Secretary Michael Gove last week ruled out the prospect of doing a deal on access to UK fishing waters, possibly in exchange for an agreement on financial services.
Any deal on fishing would provoke an angry backlash from the fishing leaders in Scotland after Mr Johnson and Mr Gove, along with other leading Brexiteers, pledged during the 2016 referendum campaign that leaving the EU would allow UK to take back control of its waters.
But Mr Varadkar yesterday warned: “I think we will need an agreement on fishing.
“We do share seas – the Irish Sea, the Channel, the North Sea. Fish don’t know where the boundary is so we’ll need to have an agreement on access to fishing waters, to rights.”
He told the BBC’S Andrew Marr show: “Bear in mind from the point of view of the
United Kingdom, 70 per cent of the fish you land in the UK actually gets sold to European markets, so you’re going to need access to our markets to be able to sell the fish that you land. If you don’t have that you’ll have to find alternative markets and probably end up getting a lower price for your product. So it makes sense that we have an agreement that gives us access to each other’s water.”
Mr Gove insisted last week that the UK will not grant access to British fishing waters in order to secure a wider trade agreementwiththeeu.“ifpeople want to fish in our waters, well, we’ll decide,” he said.
Countries such as Norway, the Faroes and Iceland, all much smaller than Britain, controlled their waters, Mr Gove pointed out. “So we will control access to ours.”
But the SNP’S environment, food and rural affairs spokeswoman Deidre Brock claimed that UK ministers are gearing up to cut a deal on fishing. “It’s clear as day that the Tories are preparing to sell out Scottish fishing all over again with Brexit,” she said.
“They still see our fishing industry as being expendable.
“The damaging reality is we could soon face the worst of all worlds under Tory Brexit plans – out of the EU with no representation, out of the single market putting vital trade at risk and being subject to CFP rules without having a say or a voice on the inside.
“Despite Tory promises, Scotland’s fishing industry could end up with precisely no gains whatsoever from Brexit. Boris Johnson must be held to account for his false promises.”