Re: DUTCH Super Trawler
Originally Posted by
Bread
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Believe who you like, just bear in mind that your the one asking me the question
Oh great fountain of wisdom, give me your answer to this!
A myth has been propagated by Brexiteers. There is a single “British fishing industry” which will benefit from reclaiming the “60/70/80% of British fish” caught by EU boats.
No, there isn’t. There are competing interests. English v Scottish; deep-sea fishing v inshore fishing; industrial v family-scale boats; fishers v processors. Some of the most vibrant, locally important and ecologically respectful parts of the UK industry have nothing to gain and everything to lose from Brexit.
They depend on shellfish, lobsters, crabs and langoustines (crayfish) that are quota-free or are overwhelmingly allocated to the UK. More than 80% is sold to the continent (mostly Spain and France). This trade has grown large because of the border-free EU single market.
Post-Brexit, trucks arriving in France with fish caught by scores of small boats will have to supply scores of “origin” and “health” documents – one for each boat and each catch. Traders will have to find UK local inspectors in working hours to verify the origin of the seafood and vets to certify its quality.
Little planning has been done in the UK to make any of that possible. The highly perishable trade will add to, and suffer from, the chaos in cross-Channel trade forecast by the*leaked government Yellowhammer document. Add to the bouillabaisse the action likely to be taken by justifiably angry French fishermen …
Justifiably? We are encouraged to believe that it was the EU that first allowed foreign boats to fish in British waters (the exclusive economic zone of up to 200 miles). It wasn’t. The common fisheries policy, first established in 1983,*enshrined historic fishing rights. The quotas were based on 1970s catches but the fishing pattern went back for decades and in some cases centuries.