EU Referendum


Fishing policy: dog whistles don't cut it


10/04/2015



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It says something of his lack of attention to detail that Farage should have gone to Grimsby to launch his party's fishing policy, with his claim recorded by the BBC that, "When Britain leaves the European Union, Grimsby will once again be a great fishing port".

The inference, borne out by the party's new poster (on its website), is that the EU's Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) has been responsible for the demise of the fishing industry in Grimsby.

The reality, though, is completely at odds with this. The port was not a victim of the CFP. In the 1960s, it was home to the distant water fleet, with over 600 trawlers registered. What did for them were the Cod Wars, when Iceland extended its economic zone to 200 miles, excluding British vessels from their traditional fishing grounds.

Since then, however, Grimsby has reinvented itself as a major processing centre for imported fish, mainly – and ironically – from Iceland, but also from Norway and the Faroes, not least with the assistance of grants from European Fisheries Fund.

Norway is no model for Grimsby. The greatest threat to its trade is not the EU, but cheap air cargo. This permits frozen whole fish to be shipped out to low-cost centres in China for processing, and then air-freighted back to Europe and elsewhere. The situation is such that two thirds of seafood traded internationally is shipped by air.

That apart, Mr Farage is quick to extol the virtues of Iceland and Norway which, he tells us, are not in the EU. But, typically of the man, he is light on detail when it comes to a replacement fisheries policy. All we get from the man is that, "a system similar to that operating in Norway could revitalise Britain's fishing industry". UKIP's policy on fishing, he says, includes preserving UK territorial waters within the "12-mile limit" around the coast for British fishermen, and creating a 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone under UK control.

As it stands, of course, we do retain our 12-mile limit. We also have our 200-mile EEZ, but bringing it back "under UK control" does not a policy make. We need to know precisely what controls would be applied, and how, before we are close to being able to judge whether the Ukip fishing policy is worth having.

For that, Ukip could have done no better than go to Owen Paterson's Green Paper which, interestingly, is precisely what the government's own review of EU competences did (see reference on page 75) – much to the chagrin of the House of Lords Select Committee.

Interestingly, when we came to look at Norway's fishing policy, it is not one which we thought particularly attractive, nor – for a variety of complex reasons – one which is applicable to the UK. Not least, it relies on the TAC system which is at the heart of the CFP, and which has caused so much damage to British fisheries.

Rather than continue this system, we went for aspects of the Icelandic policy, which seemed to us better developed. We also took lessons from the Faeroes, from the management of the Falklands squid fishery, and some of the ideas on governance from the eastern seaboard of the United States.

The resultant policy document – outlining the main issues for consultation - ran to 33 pages and one might have thought that Ukip, with its access to the wealth thrown at it by the EU, might run to something of similar or greater length by way of a policy document. Instead, all we get is thirteen "bullet points", which are fine as dog-whistle aspirations but, even in their totality, do not a policy make.

For instance, we are told that Ukip will end "quotas which cause unnecessary discards – and the new 'discard ban' which will distort the market and harm the environment". We are also told that there will be, "'land what you catch' and self-management with regional control". But there is no clue as to what systems the party would chose to control fishing effort, and how they would be enforced.

Yet, in British waters at least, the equitable (and effective) control of fishing effort has to be at the heart of any fisheries management policy. That Ukip does not even refer to this issue says a great deal. Their authors clearly do not have the first understanding of the subject, or any idea of what it takes to construct a coherent policy. 

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Furthermore, Ukip are not even in the real world when they claim they will stop foreign vessels claiming "historic rights" to fish our inshore waters. Noticeably, they refer to inshore waters, but the doctrine of "acquired rights" suggests that, even after we leave the EU, we will not be able fully to exclude EU member state fishing vessels from any of our waters.

As we write in Flexcit, some of these rights pre-date the CFP and some stretch back as far as the Middle Ages. Consolidated under the current CFP regime, they would have to be honoured, unless some could be waived (or bought out) as part of the Art 50 negotiation process. Without that, there could be no question of excluding foreign vessels, unless in strict accordance with international (and domestic) law.

Confirming that it simply doesn't "do" policy, though, Ukip has just sent to its members a 28-page pamphlet, funded by the EU and written by MEP Ray Finch. Despite the expense, this is just another rehash of the evils of the CFP. The closest we get to policy is the view that, "Outside the EU, the UK can run its own fisheries with a sensible conservation strategy which will avoid the Tragedy of the Commons in our waters at least and thus ensure that there is enough fish for future generations".

With more than a little prescience, therefore, we see the new Ukip poster boy, Tony Rutherford, uncertain as to where he is going to place his vote. Asked who he will be voting for in May, Rutherford paused, before replying: "I don't know. I've got MPs from all angles fighting for the industry", he said. "It's a very awkward question for myself because they're all doing so much for us. It isn't just Ukip that realises it's serious, everyone does. It's just Ukip that seems to do the shouting about it".

Sadly, "shouting" is all they are doing. Yet the BBC seems to think that this reference represents a fisheries policy, while it actually devotes more space to a discussion on Farage's Arthur Daley overcoat. This is the other face of the problem. The media is hopeless when it comes to analysing Ukip's policy failures. It's left to Greenpeace to do a number, with its own website pointing out Ukip's lack of engagement on fishing issues in the European Parliament.

That, in fact, is the real story. Mr Farage has been an MEP since 1999 – some fifteen years. He has had all the time he needs to come up with a fishing policy. Yet all he can manage, at the height of an election campaign, is a short introduction to the Ukip pamphlet that is about as policy-free as it can get, and 13 dog-whistle bullet points.

And that's one of the reasons why Ukip is tanking in the polls.