Michael Gove is said to be very clever, although being clever and a Brexiteer has always seemed to me to be an oxymoron. He is setting himself up for a very big fall at some future date. He used to claim the EU had effectively closed his father's Aberdeen fishing business although there is some doubt about whether it was true or not (HERE). His father has apparently denied his company was actually destroyed by EU policies
But now The Gove, has risen to the giddy height of Secretary of State for DEFRA, and is actually in charge of UK fishing and he has been telling MPs (HERE) what he is going to be doing after Brexit when we leave the Common Fisheries Policy.
In what will one day be seen as an act of monumental hubris, Gove told them that President Macron was 'speechless with rage' over what the Daily Mail optimistically called 'the fishing deal'. Bear in mind there is no deal, only an agreement to conclude a deal in the future. This is what The Mail said:
"The Environment Secretary told MPs that the Government’s deal on
fisheries had caused “anger” in Paris as he reaffirmed the UK would be
an independent coastal state after Brexit. The French president said over the weekend that he would demand
ongoing access to UK waters for French fishermen as the price of a
future trade deal and the UK quitting the controversial backstop.
But Mr Gove told the Commons, in French, that Mr Macron was “wrong” —
much to Speaker John Bercow’s amusement who said Mr Gove’s French was
“stunning”. The Environment Secretary, speaking in English, said: “The truth is
that as an independent coastal state we will be able to decide who comes
into our waters and on what terms.”
It's true we will become an independent coastal state but before the fishing industry starts the celebrations they might want to look at what the Political Declaration actually says in the two key paragraphs:
75. Within the context of the overall economic partnership the Parties should establish a new fisheries agreement on, inter alia, access to waters and quota shares.
76. The Parties will use their best endeavours to conclude and ratify their new fisheries agreement by 1 July 2020 in order for it to be in place in time to be used for determining fishing opportunities for the first year after the transition period.
Gove, assuming he is still at DEFRA, may eventually find himself facing the same painful trade offs that politicians faced in 1971-3 when the CFP and our entry into the then EEC was being negotiated. Does he protect the interests of 11,700 fishermen, whose catch will probably face tariffs when exported to the EU without a trade deal, or does he concede access for EU boats in exchange for that trade deal that protects maybe a million jobs or more in manufacturing as well as the nations non-fish food supplies? We are simply swimming round in circles to arrive at precisely the position we were in when talks were underway in 1971.
If he stands by what fishermen think that he said (effectively that their interests are paramount) he is going to face a tremendous backlash from some other and much larger group, like car workers for example. And if he doesn't, his political career will be remembered for this:
"The truth is
that as an independent coastal state we will be able to decide who comes
into our waters and on what terms."
And he will decide that EU fleets will be able to come into our waters and on the EU's terms. Fishing represents 0.12% of UK GDP, by Gross Value Added (2016) and employs 24,000 people in total. Putting at risk the whole car industry (800,000 people and 12% of our exports) in exchange for trying to tilt the North Sea in our favour will never work. If nothing else the EU knows the value of its own single market and they will not sell it cheaply.
This is as inevitable as night following day. Without tariff free access to EU markets our fishermen will not be able to sell their herring and mackerel (we export the majority of what our fishermen catch) and we won't have access to the cod and haddock (the bulk of which we import from EU fleets - see HERE).
It would not be a surprise to me if British Fishermen are worse off after Brexit than they are now. As a member of the EU we had some influence, after Brexit we won't.
