Something Fishy About The Brexit Negotiations
The PM is disappearing off into the attic room in 10 Downing Street just as the Brexit policy he has championed is reaching a crisis point.
He is now insisting on a rigorous interpretation of the rules having been exposed to Covid-19 because he had previously been totally unbothered about adhering to them.
Whether this is because he wanted sometime away from Princess Nut Nuts or was hoping to catch up with The Crown and Breaking Bad we won't find out until he publishes his memoirs but whatever the reason his competence has once again been proven sorely wanting.
Bad as the pandemic is, there is good reason to believe that a no deal Brexit would have more dire consequences for this country in the longer term. By Spring we hopefully will have a vaccine but the deleterious consequences of having no proper trading agreement with our neighbours will last for decades.
The two things that seem to be driving us to no deal are the UK's government insistence on state aid and the issue of fishing. I can't begin to understand why a Conservative government would deem state aid to be so important — what on earth would Mrs Thatcher think? It was her driving forward the single market that significantly reduced government support across Europe for ailing industries and made the EU much more internationally competitive.
I originally thought fishing was more straightforward. Although it is a tiny industry, fair enough that this country should be able to control its own waters. However, I now learn that most fishermen or fisherpeople as we now apparently must call them, don't want to leave the EU. This is because it has started to become clear that although British trawlers will be able to catch more fish, there will be nobody to buy it. We eat a relatively small proportion of the fish caught in domestic waters and the EU bought a large amount. These exports would now be subject to tariffs.
Worse still more people are employed in processing fish than there are catching them and when a non-British ship currently brings in a haul from British waters it will go to our fish processing plants which are the largest in Europe. These ships will no longer bring their catch onshore because they would then be subject to tariffs so they will be processed in facilities in the EU. Because the catch of British ships alone will not be sufficient to make up the difference, so some of the processing facilities will inevitably close leading to large scale job losses in the industry.
Is there anybody who still supports Brexit who can explain to me why if, even if the only industry supposedly benefiting from all this is being harmed, why we are going down this road other than the man supposed to be at the wheel has bu**ered off just when he is needed.
Gordon Southwell ● 1623d5 Comments