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Thursday March 28, 2024

UK fishermen angling for big catch post Brexit

By AFP
January 28, 2020

NORTH SHIELDS, United Kingdom: Just before dawn, the Good Fellowship trawler casts its nets deep into the North Sea´s cold swirling waters, fishing for prawns off England´s northeast coast.

Britain finally departs the European Union on Friday but remains bound by the bloc´s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) until the end of a transition period on December 31. The Good Fellowship´s captain, David Shiel, is cautiously hopeful that Brexit can help reverse decades of decline in the UK´s once-booming fishing industry that has been blamed partly on EU membership allowing foreign vessels to fish in British waters.

In pitch blackness, the small vessel embarks upon a day-long trip from the port town of North Shields -- situated at the mouth of the River Tyne -- to fish off the coast of England´s northeastern region, almost all of which voted for Brexit.

As dawn breaks, the three-man crew shoots heavy nets into the dark coastal waters eight miles (13 kilometres) out to sea. And as the nets scrape along the bottom of the seabed, scooping up prawns largely destined for dining tables and restaurants in Italy, France and Spain, Shiel says the time has come for the UK to take back control for its own fishing fleet. "Our own fleet surely has to come first," he tells AFP, after steering his ship out of North Shields -- whose historic Fish Quay dating back to the 13th century is the base for 33 vessels and around 350 fishermen.

While fishing accounts for less than 0.1 percent of UK economic output, it played a key role in the 2016 referendum in favour of exiting the EU. The CFP permits European Union vessels equal access to the fishing grounds of other member states, provided that they comply with quotas. Shiel, 52, who lives in the northeast town of Seahouses, argues that this permits rival EU fishermen to catch an unfair amount of fish from UK waters.

Following Brexit, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson´s Conservative government is planning legislation to exclude foreign vessels. However, a Brussels-based EU diplomat told AFP that finding an accord on fishing access to British waters was a prerequisite for striking an overall deal on Britain´s new trade relationship with the bloc.

Indeed, many UK trawlermen believe they could be sacrificed for Britain winning deals for its key service sectors, led by London´s financial industry. "We´ve got to be looking at a bigger picture to get better sustainable fishing for our own country," insists Shiel.