Tag Archives: United Kingdom. Britain

‘I was lied to by Boris Johnson’: Why much of UK fishing is still waiting for a Brexit boost

Almost four years after Johnson promised the fishing merchant the French would be desperate to buy his fish, the business has seen sales plummet 30% and export costs rise by as much as £3,000 a week. Fish merchant Ian Perkes won’t forget the day he met Boris Johnson. It was 23 August 2019, and the MP, less than a month into his spell as prime minister, was on an unannounced visit to the south Devon fishing town of Brixham. It was a typically rumbunctious performance from Johnson, extolling the virtues of Brexit and the “huge benefits” it was going to bring to the UK, not least the folk of this small but important UK fishing town. >click to read< 08:08

That Reminds Me: The Arthur Cavanagh and the end of an era

“At precisely 8 0’clock on the morning of Jan 10th (1962), the old trawler Arthur Cavanagh unobtrusively slipped her moorings in Milford docks, and with a farewell blast on her siren, began the last journey of her eventful life. On the face of it, this departure of an ageing ship for the scrapyards, merits no widespread regret, being an everyday event, yet when Arthur Cavanagh rounded St Anne’s Head, it marked the end of an era on the West Coast, the passing of a class of trawler the like of which, in terms of services rendered, will never have its peer. The Arthur Cavanagh was the last of the West Coast’s Castle class trawlers which probably played a greater part in the development of the country’s hake fishery than any other single factor. >click to read< 13:15

More information, photos, and stories of ARTHUR CAVANAGH LO407 / M184 / M16, >click here< 

Will Britain lose another fishing war?

On average, a fish in the North Sea crosses five territorial waters frontiers every day. They don’t have passports or face quarantine. Britain made a fool of itself during the three cod wars it fought with Iceland between 1956 and 1976. British fishermen decided these were “traditional” waters and the Royal Navy was sent in to try and intimidate the Icelandic fishing boats. Other than geo-thermal energy, banking and airlines, the main Icelandic product is cod. They depended on hauling cod of out the northern waters close to Arctic Circle — we looked absurd trying to stop them. Does a new fish war with France, the Netherlands, and Spain now loom? The problem arises partly from the 1982 UN Law of the Sea convention which extended territorial waters out to 200 km. >click to read< 10:09