Saving Seafood

Has Boris forgotten our fishing history?

September 10, 2020 — Why, then, does fishing stir people up? It’s not jobs or money. According to Commons Library research, the UK fishing industry employs about 24,000 people and earns around £1.4bn per annum. As a proportion of Britain’s £2.1 trillion 2019 GDP, that’s small change. And with 27,000 employees in the UK alone, Amazon provides more jobs today than the entire British fishing sector.

The BBC recently had a go, suggesting that ‘supporters of Brexit’ see fishing as ‘a symbol of sovereignty that will now be regained’. But it goes deeper than abstract ideas of control. The environmentalist Paul Kingsnorth argues that if we’re to find national identity anywhere, it’s in the relationship we have with our landscape we inhabit. And for the inhabitants of the British Isles, no matter which wave of migration brought us here since this landmass was settled in about 900,000BC, that identity has been bound up with the sea.

Wherever you live in the British Isles, it’s not possible to be more than 70 miles from the sea. We have around 19,500 miles of coastline: more than Brazil. The sea has sustained and shaped Britain for thousands of years.

The usual angle on this story is about commerce and colonisation. In its pomp, the might of the British Empire was inseparable from its maritime culture. This fact, and Britain’s decline from imperial grandeur, underpinned the recent controversy over singing “Rule Britannia” at the Proms . But so far the culture war has largely ignored those working-class men who plied the same waves not to conquer or trade, but to catch fish.

Fishing has been part of British culture since time immemorial, but especially on the North Sea coast. The monks of Wyke Hull were granted a special licence to fish in the Humber by King Henry II in the 12th century. Then in the 19th century, when the arrival of railways opened up new inland markets for fresh fish, a wave of migration to the area made Hull a fishing boom town. Often-illiterate fishermen set sail in ‘fishing smacks’, light sail-powered vessels of around 50 feet with a crew of around four men, to trawl for deep-sea fish as far afield as the Faroes and Iceland.

Read the full story at UnHerd

EU Negotiator Cites ‘Objective Risk’ of No Post-Brexit Deal

July 24, 2020 — British and European Union negotiators failed to agree on underlying principles in the latest round of talks on post-Brexit trade between the bloc and its one-time member, again raising concerns about far-reaching economic damage if no deal is reached by the end of the year.

In comments delivered after the talks ended Thursday, chief U.K. negotiator David Frost said it was clear the two sides wouldn’t meet their goal of reaching an understanding on “the principles underlying any agreement” this month.

“By its current refusal to commit to conditions of open and fair competition and to a balanced agreement on fisheries, the U.K. makes a trade agreement, at this point, unlikely,″ Barnier said at a press conference in London.

Britain is seeking a free-trade pact similar to one the EU recently negotiated with Canada. The EU wants to ensure both sides have similar rules on a wide range of issues, including workers’ rights, the environment and government subsidies, before it is willing to discuss such an agreement.

Britain also wants to regain control of fishing in its territorial waters, which have been governed by EU rules for more than 40 years. Foreign boats account for about 60% of the fish caught in U.K. waters.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The New York Times

U.K. Says EU Fishing Deal May Not Be Finalized Until December

July 9, 2020 — A fisheries agreement between the U.K. and European Union may not be finalized until December, five months later than scheduled, Environment Secretary George Eustice said.

The subject has become a sticking point in negotiations over the future relationship between the two sides. Britain wants to restrict EU vessels’ right to fish in British waters, making it conditional on annual negotiations, while the EU has made continued access a precondition of any wider trade deal. They had originally aimed to agree on terms by the start of July.

Read the full story at Bloomberg

UK’s chief Brexit negotiator admits fishing deal is unlikely by July deadline

May 28, 2020 — Britain’s chief Brexit negotiator said it was unlikely that Britain and the EU would finalise a fisheries agreement by a July deadline on Wednesday, as Michel Barnier offered UK opposition parties an extension of up to two years on the transition period.

“I am beginning to think we might not make it by the 30th of June,” David Frost told MPs on parliament’s Brexit scrutiny committee the week before the next round of negotiations with the EU.

“We don’t regard fisheries as something that can be traded for any other bits of the negotiation. There is something very important happening at the end of the year which is that we get back control of our own waters,” he said

“Any agreements have simply got to accommodate that reality,” Boris Johnson’s top Brexit official said, as he described the divisions over the issue between the two sides.

Read the full story from The Telegraph at Yahoo Finance

EU ready to ease fisheries demands in Brexit talks: sources

May 27, 2020 — The EU is willing to shift its stance on fisheries in negotiations with Britain next week, sources said, in what would be the first major concession from the bloc in talks on their new relationship after Brexit.

Fishing is particularly politically sensitive for France, and the 27-nation bloc says it would not seal a new trade deal with Britain without a stable agreement on that issue.

Currently, fishing mostly takes place in UK waters but most of the catch goes to European Union fishermen.

Britain wants to unwind that after Brexit materialises at the start of next year, saying that, as a newly independent coastal state, it wants to be in control of its waters and fish.

But the EU has so far sought to maintain the status quo, a demand an official with the bloc suggested was a primarily starting point for negotiations.

Read the full story at Reuters

Brexit trade talks face collapse unless EU abandon demands for continued access to UK fishing waters

May 1, 2020 — Brexit trade negotiations face collapse unless the EU abandons its demands for continued access to UK fishing waters, sources close to the talks have said.

Brussels has called for EU boats to keep access under “existing conditions” as a price for the free trade agreement being negotiated by the two sides. The UK insists any fishing agreement must be separate from the trade deal with access negotiated annually in a similar fashion to Norway’s agreement with the bloc.

A UK source close to the negotiations said that the EU’s red line would need to change, otherwise the talks could be terminated in June.

“There are some fundamentals that we’re not going to change, nor going to move on. Because they are not so much negotiating positions as they’re sort of what an independent state does” the source said.

Read the full story from The Telegraph at Yahoo News

English fishing, aquaculture businesses receive GBP 10 million coronavirus support

April 20, 2020 — More than 1,000 fishing and aquaculture businesses in England are being offered the opportunity to receive direct cash grants through a new multi-million-pound fisheries support scheme launched by the U.K. government.

Announced by Environment Secretary George Eustice and Chief Secretary to the Treasury Steve Barclay, the fund is the latest step to protect businesses affected by COVID-19, with up to GBP 9 million (USD 11.2 million, EUR 10.3 million) made available for eligible fishing and aquaculture businesses.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

UK government announces £10m coronavirus fund for English fishing sector

April 17, 2020 — The UK government on Friday announced a £10m ($12.4m) fund to shield England’s fishing and aquaculture sectors from the impacts of coronavirus.

More than 1,000 fishing and aquaculture businesses in England will receive £9m in direct cash grants through a new fisheries support scheme, the government said, noting that the supports were designed to assist the sector with its “immediate needs” during the crisis.

The government also said that a further £1m would be made available to support projects to assist fishermen to sell their catch in their local communities during the pandemic.

The move, it said, would enable them to find new markets and support communities that depend on the fisheries industry.

Read the full story at Yahoo News

UK supermarkets given permission to join forces, merge supply chains

March 23, 2020 — U.K. supermarket chains can for the first time work together and will be allowed to share distribution networks, stock level data, staff, and other important resources after the government temporarily relaxed elements of competition law to enable food to reach stores during the coronavirus crisis.

Drivers’ hours have also been relaxed to enable retailers to get more food to outlets, while plastic bag charges for online purchases have been stopped to speed up deliveries.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Without a Brexit fisheries deal, herring and other North Sea species face dire future

March 20, 2020 — Taking back control of fisheries became one of the totemic issues uniting supporters of the campaign for the UK to leave the EU. The issue will again be high on the agenda when the negotiations over the future relationship between the UK and EU are able to take place.

This will turn on the principles of freedom of access to , and the rules governing how the EU’s total allowable catch is divided between member states. Both are enshrined in the EU Common Fisheries Policy, and the fishing quotas have been fixed since 1983. Referred to as “relative stability,” these permit a disproportionate amount of fishing in UK waters. Vessels from other EU member states are estimated to catch eight times as much fish from UK waters as the other way around.

The UK government has indicated that getting a better deal for British fishers will be a red line in the negotiations. In particular, it proposes that access to UK waters should be licensed and  shares should be negotiated annually based on “zonal attachments,” which are the proportions of international fish stocks that reside the 200-mile area off the coast of a country, known as the exclusive economic zone.

Read the full story at PHYS.org