The British government is deploying the Royal Navy to protect Britain’s fishing waters and preparing legislation which will empower them to board EU fishing vessels and arrest crew if they try to carry on plundering British waters illegally.
The move comes as Prime Minister Boris Johnson says that a so-called ‘no deal’ break with the bloc looks “very, very likely”, with the European Union in general and Emmanuel Macron’s France in particular unwilling to countenance a trade deal which does not see Britain agree to continue surrendering most of its national fishing stocks to EU vessels, among other anti-sovereignty concessions.
Technically the United Kingdom left the bloc at the beginning of 2020, but for all practical purposes it has remained a full member — minus its voting rights — throughout this year’s so-called “transition” period, which was supposed to be used to agree a mutually beneficial free trade agreement.
With such an agreement not forthcoming with mere weeks to go until the end of the year, the British government is preparing to deploy four River-class offshore patrol boats to protect what should become Britain’s rightful and exclusive economic zone in January, according to The Times.
French fishermen have already proven willing to physically attack British fishermen attempting to access what little share of the EU’s marine resources Brussels has assigned to them, and whether they will actually accept losing their right to exploit Britain’s waters in the event of a no-deal is questionable.
‘Scallop Wars’: French Boats Attack and Ram British Fishermen https://t.co/vwVMVDWqEo
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) August 29, 2018
“I’m not asking to have my cake and eat it, no,” Emmanuel Macron had insisted on the subject of British fisheries at a recent meeting.
“All I want is a cake that’s worth its weight because I won’t give up my share either,” he said, suggesting that the French government feels it has some sort of entitlement to the marine resources of Britain’s territorial waters, in or out of the EU, after long years in which the bloc has doled out the lion’s share of Britain’s fish to foreigners.
The European Economic Community, as the EU then was, changed its rules to make national fisheries a so-called “common resource” right before Britain, with the richest stocks in Western Europe, joined in the 1970s.
Tens of thousands of fishing industry jobs and over half the vessels in the British fishing fleet have been lost over the years as Brussels has assigned quotas for British fish to fishermen from other EU countries.
Scottish Fishermen: EU Acting 'Like Bully Who Steals Your Lunch and Expects You to Be Grateful for a Few Crumbs Back' https://t.co/WeR31CSZv8
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) November 28, 2020
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