August 7, 2017 — NEWQUAY, England — Fisherman Phil Trebilcock is tired of being told there are not enough fish in the sea.
“On the east coast of Cornwall there are fish swimming up the beaches but they’re not allowed to catch them,” he said, hauling pots of spider crabs out of a choppy Celtic Sea recently. “They should take more advice from the fishermen, and less from the scientists.”
Trebilcock is bridling against European Union quotas that dictate how much fish British vessels can land — in some cases prompting fishermen to dump dead fish back into the water if they have caught more than they are allocated.
And that’s not all. The fisherman ticked off his grievances with the EU regulations: quotas, too much paperwork and too many foreign boats chasing fish in British waters.
So it is no surprise that last year Trebilcock joined 52 percent of the voting public to chose to leave the EU, or “Brexit.”
The country fishing industry accounts for less than 0.5 percent of Britain’s GDP but has nevertheless become a symbol of resistance to what many believe are onerous and damaging EU regulations. So as negotiations between the U.K. and EU ramp up in the coming months, one of the many sticking points will be around shared waters.
In spite of the iconic place that fishermen have within the Brexit camp, the industry is actually divided. While many of those who do the catching are cheering the move, a good number of those who process the catch are fretting over the upcoming divorce.
“We have more to lose from Brexit than to gain from it, definitely,” said Julian Harvey, a partner at W. Harvey and Sons, a shellfish wholesaler and processor in Cornwall on the southwest coast of England.