Reply to: Holding all the cards

[AtW]

I guess they’ll have to call up Churchy and Spudbhoy from retirement, otherwise the French may invade

[Mordac]

How are you going to police French boats - shoot them?

Now there's an idea...

[AtW]

Sovereignty meets setting the quotas and policing them, and having full legal jurisdiction, and the EU have all that and want to keep it. It's petty, I know, but if you can't see a problem with that then there's no point in having a discussion.

How are you going to police French boats - shoot them?

[Mordac]

Originally Posted by Eirikur
The only idiot is you as you don't understand that reciprocal rights exist for UK fisherpeople to fish in other EU countries' waters. So it is fair

That's why you're on the 'ignore list'.

Brexidiots don’t aim for fair, they want “sovereign”, in the most Mor Onic sense

Sovereignty meets setting the quotas and policing them, and having full legal jurisdiction, and the EU have all that and want to keep it. It's petty, I know, but if you can't see a problem with that then there's no point in having a discussion.

[darmstadt]

As a friend of mine succinctly put it:

Fishing contributes 0.02% to our economy, and make no mistake, the arguments from the Tories - and the landlocked Daily Mail readers who wouldn't know a weever from a megrim - are not about economics. They are clueless, uninformed nonsense based entirely on willy waving, flag shagging and socking it to Johnnny Foreigner. 99% of politicians and pub ranters haven't got a clue what they are talking about, even the ones who actually DO care about coastal communities, rather than using us as a convenient hook to hang their prejudices on.

The issues here are EU access to British waters and British access to EU markets. Unless both are sorted in a fair and equitable manner, fishing communities on both sides of the Channel will both be completely screwed. The vote farmed self-flagellators 'think' it's just about 'taking back control of our waters' and that we can just hoist a Union Jack and say 'we're doing that, like it or lump it'.


If no deal happens we can exercise control over as much of the Channel as we like, and send gunboats out to enforce it - the EU will simply deny British fishermen access to their markets, or bung so much bureaucracy on that by the time the fish reaches its destination it's rancid.


British fishermen sell the vast majority of their catch to the EU.


They'll be left trying to persuade us to buy and eat lots more fish. We won't, they'll be grinding down fish for fertiliser as kids go hungry to school, and they won't be able to earn a living. EU fishermen will be denied access to the grounds they have fished for generations, they won't be able to catch ENOUGH fish, and they won't be able to either.


There is a massive issue with overfishing, make no mistake, and as ever, it's corporate greed forcing out small operators. Three companies own more than two thirds of England's fishing quota. Supertrawlers should be banned by both UK and EU and clear zones established for larger operators. The vast majority of quotas should go to small, locally owned boats on both sides of the Channel, sustaining local communities AND fish stocks. And those boats should be checked out to ensure they are operating. Some corporate fishing interests are hoarding rights for boats which never cast a net.


I've watched our local fleet diminish over the years, forced out of business not by the small French boats the right wing media hold up as the problem but massive corporate operations, some UK owned, some EU owned, many farther afield. (The same big operations which have decimated stocks for we shore anglers, until the establishment of our local offshore wind farm forced them away while simultaneously creating an ideal microclimate for breeding: fishing is wonderful again now.) A true defence of our waters, fish stocks and the livelihoods of our fishermen would target big corporations of all hues rather then the bogeyman single operator sailing out of Boulogne.


But as ever, billionaire press and media owners are in cahoots with billionaire fishing interests, so the wool was pulled over people's eyes - including, sadly, the eyes of many fishermen. Now they are realising how they've been conned.
I hope it's not too late to get a deal which benefits both the fishermen and the fish. But since the fishermen and our communities in which they live are simply propaganda tools for a hedge-fund led Brexit agenda which cares not one jot about ordinary people other than getting them to parrot xenophobic slogans I am not holding my breath....

[AtW]

What would Britain do with that extra fish anyway, it would need to be sold to EU anyway and they won’t buy it unless their own fishermen are sorteeeed

[BlasterBates]

Its Sunday, chill and have a read...

http://www.cpahq.org/cpahq/cpadocs/U...ial%20Seas.pdf

JSTOR: Access Check

https://www.un.org/depts/los/convent...s/unclos_e.pdf

indeed, International Law states:

Without prejudice to article 49, an archipelagic State shall respect
existing agreements with other States and shall recognize traditional fishing
rights and other legitimate activities of the immediately adjacent neighbouring
States

EU Coastal states have been fishing in British waters for over 100 hundred years under various treaties.

Fisheries Convention - Wikipedia

Between Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom the "International Convention for regulating the police of the North Sea fisheries outside territorial waters" (the North Sea Fisheries Convention) of 1888 applied which allowed fishing in each other's waters up to 3 miles from the coast line. The United Kingdom denounced this convention in 1963 in order to allow setting up a 12-mile exclusive fishery zone. After denunciation it invited the parties to that convention and several others to negotiate on several issues related to fisheries, which resulted in the Fisheries Convention.[4]

[darmstadt]

Its Sunday, chill and have a read...

http://www.cpahq.org/cpahq/cpadocs/U...ial%20Seas.pdf

JSTOR: Access Check

https://www.un.org/depts/los/convent...s/unclos_e.pdf

[BlasterBates]

It's not about the fishing industry, it's about trying to regain legal sovereignty over UK territorial waters (which shouldn't even be a subject for negotiation, but of course with the EU it's never a fair and reasonable discussion).
You're an idiot if you can't understand the difference.

No-one is forcing the UK to hand over fishing rights. The UK is grovelling for a deal with the EU and therefore the EU are demanding fishing rights because they can.

[AtW]

The only idiot is you as you don't understand that reciprocal rights exist for UK fisherpeople to fish in other EU countries' waters. So it is fair

Brexidiots don’t aim for fair, they want “sovereign”, in the most Mor Onic sense

[Eirikur]

, but of course with the EU it's never a fair and reasonable discussion).
You're an idiot if you can't understand the difference.

The only idiot is you as you don't understand that reciprocal rights exist for UK fisherpeople to fish in other EU countries' waters. So it is fair

[Mordac]

What the feck is it with the fishing industry anyway? UK acts as if it lives off fish and nothing else exists. Is half the Tory party somehow making money from the fish industry?

It's not about the fishing industry, it's about trying to regain legal sovereignty over UK territorial waters (which shouldn't even be a subject for negotiation, but of course with the EU it's never a fair and reasonable discussion).
You're an idiot if you can't understand the difference.

[AtW]

What the feck is it with the fishing industry anyway? UK acts as if it lives off fish and nothing else exists. Is half the Tory party somehow making money from the fish industry?

No, but it's a convenient excuse to get no-deal and then sell out to US

[dsc]

What the feck is it with the fishing industry anyway? UK acts as if it lives off fish and nothing else exists. Is half the Tory party somehow making money from the fish industry?

[AtW]

Or, our elected Government having to ask the EU for permission to manage UK territorial waters.

There will be a lot of EU permission asking after Brexit, a lot more.