‘Even Worse Than I Had Feared’: Farage on Scrutiny of Boris’s Brexit Fishing Deal

PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND - NOVEMBER 25: Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage visits Plymouth Fisherie
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Oliver JJ Lane

Boris Johnson has “betrayed” Britain’s fishermen in the Brexit deal being voted on by Parliament on Wednesday, but nevertheless is deserving of some praise for underlining the Brexit process, veteran freedom campaigner Nigel Farage has said.

Writing on Tuesday, just a day before the deal agreed between the UK  and the EU’s negotiators on Christmas Eve is due to be voted on in Parliament — with every indication it will pass — the Brexit leader said that while it would have been better to leave properly on a clean-break basis, Boris Johnson’s deal at least draws a line under the matter.

Whether it may allow the country in general to move on from over four years of Brexit drama, nevertheless the deal is far from perfect, Farage said, particularly pointing to his reading of the section on fishing.

Britain’s fishing waters are a long-standing sore point with the European Union, a matter of disappointment to Eurosceptics long before the Brexit referendum, and a major bone of contention in recent talks. Despite promises, accusations have been made that Britain’s fishermen have been seriously let down, or even sold out, by the British government, with the European Union continuing to enjoy major power over Britain’s territorial waters even after the country technically leaves the Union.

The situation on fishing stands to be damaging to the public perception of Mr Johnson’s deal, given the emphasis placed on the importance of national waters and the fate of fishing communities.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Mr Farage said of fishing:

This element of the deal is even worse than I had feared… Michel Barnier claimed that Britain will become an independent coastal state, but the truth is our nation still won’t own the fish that swim in its waters. The current terms of the UK common fisheries policy will continue and just 25 per cent of EU boats’ fishing rights in UK waters will be transferred to Britain’s fishing fleet up to 2026. Originally, it was expected that the EU’s rights would be cut by 80 per cent.

Nobody should underestimate the sense of betrayal in our coastal communities this has inspired. Even if after 2026 Britain wants to increase further its own quota allocation, it will have to pay compensation to the EU to do so. This is an outrageous humiliation. The EU should be paying Britain to fish up to six miles from our shores. Raw quota figures aside, Britain’s coastal communities deserve recompense for what has been done to them once again.

Moving to head off criticism of the fishing aspect of the deal, the UK government has announced a £100 million support package for British fishing, money it says will be used to modernise the fleet and processing facilities to make the industry “sustainable”.

Farage also expressed concern about the status of Northern Ireland in the deal — Ulster MPs are so disatisfied with the outcome of the deal they will be voting against it — and on financial services.

Concluding, the top Brexiteer noted:

No peace is perfect and Britain must be vigilant in the coming weeks and months…. There is no going back. The grassroots campaign to win back Britain’s independence has triumphed against the Westminster establishment. That, surely, is worth celebrating.

Read more at the Daily Telegraph

Farage’s comments come as Parliament prepares to rubber-stamp the deal, despite concerns about the timeframe for the vote. While the deal document stands at 1,200 pages, it has only been available to lawmakers for a couple of days to review, and will only be debated for one day. Some in parliament have called for Wednesday’s vote to be provisional, with a full vote following next year, but this seems unlikely as the government seeks to move on with other business and close the book on Brexit.

Prattfalls may await, however. Previous EU deals have contained so-called “guillotine clauses” — sharply worded legal provisions hidden within the text activated by the European Union at a later date. As Breitbart London reported:

…former Brexit Secretary David Davis warned that parliament failing to carefully scrutinise the deal before finally signing on the dotted line could leave the UK vulnerable to the EU’s “guillotine clauses”, such as Switzerland had experienced.

Switzerland is not a member of the European Union, but has a deal with the bloc that includes some 20 trade treaties. After the Swiss recently voted to stop the free movement of EU citizens to their country, Brussels threatened to use, as Mr Davis phrased it, “unnoticed guillotine clauses to stop every single treaty. Unsurprisingly, Switzerland gave in to these ruthless hardball tactics.”

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