Sir Keir Starmer has been warned by furious Scottish fishermen not to sell them down the river in his post-Brexit reset of relations with the EU.
The prime minister has been told to keep hold of sovereignty over Britain’s fishing waters as he seeks to rebuild ties with the bloc, with EU leaders eyeing access to UK waters as a priority in negotiations.
“The Scottish fishing industry has twice in the past been regarded as expendable by British prime ministers when it comes to Europe,” warned the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation (SFF) chief executive Elspeth Macdonald.
Ms Macdonald added: “We must not have a repeat of 1973 when the condition of entry to the EEC was that our richly endowed fishing waters be pooled with other members, or of 2020 when the Brexit agreement, while restoring the UK to the status of sovereign coastal state, granted continued access to our waters to EU vessels to catch far more fish in our waters than they catch in their own.”
Her challenge to Sir Keir comes ahead of a UK-EU summit in May, by which the PM has said he wants an ambitious deal to have been agreed.
And it is likely to cause a headache for the PM, with officials in Brussels making ongoing access to British fishing waters, currently due to expire next year, one of their three top priorities in negotiations.
EU leaders, including France, Denmark and the Netherlands, which catch the most fish in UK waters, will push for Britain to maintain the status quo on access for European boats to British waters before offering any major concessions on trade in return.
Another key aspect of the EU’s approach to talks with the UK is a youth mobility scheme, a proposal which Downing Street has so far rejected.
The European Movement said leaving the EU had been “a disaster” for UK food producers and the fishing industry.
Head of campaigns Richard Kilpatrick: “The Brexit deal was a botched deal that sold out the fishing industry that had been promised - that life outside the EU would be better. Now we are left picking up the pieces of broken Brexit promises and a trust-less relationship with our European neighbours.
“Market access is a positive for the UK fishing industry, and it should be coupled with reciprocal access to fish in European waters. This was the promise made to the industry in 2016.This is why it’s vital that we take the negotiations of the future of our relationship with Europe out of closed rooms, and have an open transparent enquiry into what that relationship looks like.”
But Ms Macdonald warned Sir Keir that giving up rights to Britain’s own waters would represent the loss of a national asset critical to food security.
She said: “The UK’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and the fisheries it supports are the envy of many.
“While there are many provisions within the law about how coastal states should cooperate with their neighbours and how resources are managed, the 2020 Brexit deal left the UK in a situation that no other independent coastal state would countenance – giving unfettered access to another’s fishing fleet.”
She pointed to figures showing the EU catches around seven times more fish by value in British waters than the UK catches in EU waters, adding that “reciprocal access is heavily loaded in the EU’s favour”.
“Giving up rights to decide who fishes in our EEZ, and when and how, would be a betrayal of UK sovereignty,” she added.
In a letter to Sir Keir, Ms Macdonald compared fish to British oil and gas fields in the North Sea, asking why Britain would give the EU access to one but not the other.
She called for annual negotiations on fishing quotas, not a long-term access agreement, and said Sir Keir should insist on Brussels paying for any long-term access to UK waters.
Ms Macdonald said: “The UK now has the opportunity to do fisheries management better than the EU – more practical and appropriate to the UK situation. Any concessions on this that would suck the UK back into even the outer reaches of the Common Fisheries Policy’s (CFP) orbit would be a significantly backwards step.”
The Cabinet Office, which is overseeing talks with the EU, vowed to protect the interests of British fishing communities and fulfil the UK’s international commitments to protect the marine environment.
A spokesman said: “We are resetting the relationship with our European friends to tackle barriers to trade, including through seeking to negotiate a veterinary agreement, to make it easier for businesses to export food to the EU with less red tape."
