Tag Archives: Britain
French minister says, We still want a ‘few dozen’ more fishing licences
France has received 93% of the fishing licences it requested but wants Britain to issue a few dozen more, It comes after the UK and Jersey Governments on Saturday granted further licences to French fishing boats in an apparent attempt to resolve the long-running dispute over their post-Brexit rights to trawl British waters, and as technical talks over several more vessels continue. “We still have a few dozen to obtain, around 60. We are looking at every file that remains. We will not let down any of these fishermen.” >click to read< 14:36
A trilateral agreement: More haddock can be caught after fishing deal with EU and Norway
The UK has made a deal with Norway and the European Union on how to divide up fish stocks in the North Sea next year. While fishing groups have welcomed the agreement, catch-sector bosses say it does nothing to resolve issues around access to cod in Norwegian waters after talks in the spring between London and Oslo collapsed. Ministers say they “remain optimistic” a deal with Norway and the Faroe Islands for 2022 can be struck before the end of the year. >click to read< 08:39
EU deadline in UK-France fishing row set to expire
An EU deadline for Britain to grant licences to dozens of French fishing boats is set to expire today, with Paris threatening legal action unless a last-minute compromise can be found. France says that 104 of its boats still lack licences to operate in British and Channel Island waters that should have been granted under a Brexit deal Britain signed with the European Union in December last year. Britain denies discriminating,,, >click to read< 11:49
‘French fishermen want direct talks with Jersey’
Chris Le Masurier, of the Jersey Oyster Company, who delivered produce to St Malo yesterday, said that the fishers were protesting against the political process going through the EU and UK rather than being settled locally.,, ‘I was delayed for an hour because I was allotted a slot at the time of the protest, which was at 8am. I was skippering the vessel. After that I moved alongside one of the French boats for a chat. I spoke to Pascal Lecler, the chairman of the fisheries committee in Brittany. He said that he wanted me to pass a message to the Jersey government and that was to come and talk directly with Normandy and Brittany. He gave me a Breton flag and I then dropped off all my seafood and returned to the Island,’ >click to read< 08:39
NFFO hits the UK Government for betrayal of the fishing industry during the Brexit negotiations
There are some in the fishing industry whose trust in the Government has been irrevocably shattered. The fishing industry was given assurances from the top of government, the Prime Minister, senior cabinet ministers and Chief Negotiator himself, Lord Frost, that our industry would not be sold out in negotiations with Europe, as it had been by Edward Heath in 1973. There was always a risk. Even when the fishing industry was used as the poster-child for Brexit, the NFFO paid for and distributed thousands of flags bearing the message,,, >click to read< 08:45
Fish tails – on the final #FishyFriday of July
Hard to believe looking across the harbour this morning that six hours before this was taken both St Marys and Sennen lifeboat were patrolling the Scillys as gusts up to 69mph caused chaos both ashore and at sea. An impatient fleet gets the gear sorted before leaving the quay and heading back to sea.. first away was the hake netter Ajax, Fish, photos, >click to read< 22:47
Britain, EU reach agreement on 2021 fishing rights
The European Union and Britain on Wednesday (June 2) reached an agreement on fishing rights for 2021, the European Commission said. The accord was finalised in a phone call between the EU’s Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries Virginijus Sinkevicius and British Secretary of State for the Environment George Eustice. “This agreement provides predictability and continuity for our fleets with definitive TACs (trade and cooperation agreements) for the remainder of the year. >click to read< 16:39
Is Fly Shooting the new Electric Pulse Fishing?
NUTFA has been receiving reports of the increasing number of fly shooters operating initially in the eastern Channel but now fishing as far as western waters for a couple of years now. From initial reports of relatively small numbers of these vessels taking significant quantities of Bass, suddenly we seem to have a vast fleet [75] of high powered fly shooters working our waters, everywhere from the eastern Channel through to western waters, all licenced by the MMO, despite the fact that they admit to not having complete catch records for this method in these waters, reliant instead on member state data, including that from France who have been penalized in the past for failures to provide accurate information in this respect. >click to read< 23:06
Honouring Whitby’s first female skipper Dora Walker
She was the first woman to fly as a passenger on a plane, and 11th in Britain to drive a car. When her brothers went to war, she followed to the frontline. And when she was told she needed sea air, she defied tradition to become the North East’s first female skipper, sailing the seas with a pistol on her hip and an Army issue tin hat. More than three decades after her death, Whitby Civic Society is to remember skipper Dora Walker, author and museum curator, with a blue plaque to honour her remarkable feats. >click to read< 08:26
A “very black day for Britain” – Yorkshire’s last distant-water fishery has been scuppered
The failure to land a deal allowing the UK to fish in Norwegian sub-Arctic waters means the crew of the £52m Kirkella, which lands into Hull, has no work. UK Fisheries CEO Jane Sandell said they had been promised a “sea of opportunity, not the scuppering of an entire industry.” She said: “George Eustice owes our crews and the Humberside region an explanation as to why the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) was unable even to maintain the rights we have had to fish in Norwegian waters for decades, never mind land the boasts of a ‘Brexit Bonus’, which has turned to disaster. >click to read< 15:45
Headscarf Revolutionaries: ‘Big Lil’ saved my life and that’s why she should be named the Greatest Hullensian of All Time
Alongside Christine Jensen, Mary Denness and Yvonne Blenkinsop, ‘Big Lil’ formed the Hessle Road Women’s Committee as the dire consequences of the Triple Trawler Tragedy in 1968 came into full focus. The group, known as the Headscarf Revolutionaries, has become immortalised in books and murals locally, but consensus remains that their work is not celebrated enough outside of Hull. Bilocca, a fish wife, led the group after becoming enraged by the loss of 58 men in the winter of 1968 when the St Romanus, Kingston Peridot and Ross Cleveland all sunk in a matter of weeks. >click to read< 10:06
Cork TD criticizes ‘shocking’ Brexit deal as value of fishing rights loss revised
A new study of the fishing rights subject to Britain’s trade deal with the European Union (EU) published by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has contradicted the Minister for Agriculture, Charlie McConalogue. When the Brexit trade deal was announced on Christmas Eve, Mr McConalogue said the fishing rights going to UK fishermen would cost €35m per year. However,,, Independent TD Michael Collins has said this agreement is not fair and described the Brexit trade deal as a “shocking deal” for Irish fishermen. “[French] President Macron has come out and was one of the first to praise the deal of course for his own fishermen but sadly it was a shocking deal for Irish fishermen. >click to read< 16:02
Britain and E.U. Reach Landmark Deal on Brexit – The fishing industry reacts
Britain and the European Union struck a hard-fought trade agreement on Thursday, settling a bitter divorce that stretched over more than four years and setting the terms for a post-Brexit future as close neighbors living apart. The deal, which must be ratified by the British and European Parliaments, came together in Brussels after 11 months of grinding negotiations, culminating in a last-minute haggle over fishing rights that stretched into Christmas Eve, just a week before a year-end deadline. >click to read< 14:33
Brexit. The fishing industry reacts – not a sellout but not a Christmas bonanza either: – The UK fleet felt they had everything to gain and almost nothing to lose so how have they done? The picture is mixed and everyone is using the caveat of let’s see the detail,,, >click to read<
F/V Johanna C: Memorial lights up ports across a nation in remembrance
Lights were shone into the sky and out to sea across the nation in remembrance of two fishermen who died when their boat sunk. The Joanna C trawler went down off the Sussex coast on 21 November. Skipper Dave Bickerstaff was spotted clinging to a buoy and rescued. The body of 26-year-old Adam Harper was found by divers a few days later, but Robert Morley, 38, is still missing. The memorial was staged in harbour towns to “light his way home”. >click to read< 10:47
Canada, Britain strike new trade, beating Brexit, incorporating expiring EU pact
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his British counterpart, Boris Johnson, announced the deal during a live video news conference on Saturday morning.,, Britain’s decision to leave the EU after its Brexit referendum means that the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA, will no longer apply to the country at the end of the year. The new deal preserves CETA’s key provision until a more comprehensive agreement can be reached later: the elimination of tariffs on 98 per cent of Canadian exports to Britain, which is Canada’s fifth largest trading partner with $29 billion in two-way merchandise trade in 2019. >click to read< 09:35
Fools and Other People’s Money: Offshore Wind Industry Bamboozles Boris With ‘Wind Power’s Cheap’ Myth
If 2020 demonstrates anything, it’s the herd-like behavior of governments. Italy responds to the Covid-19 pandemic with a lockdown, so the rest of Europe follows its lead, but for Sweden. Britain decides to go for net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050 without a clue as to how much it will cost, and much of the West, including Joe Biden, follows suit. Only New Zealand had the gumption to ask how much it might cost. Earlier this month, British prime minister Boris Johnson pledged that offshore wind, cheaper than goal and gas, he claimed, would power every home in Britain by 2030. Cheaper than gas? Boris got suckered. >click to read< 14:44
Brexit: EU preparing to row back on rights to fish in British waters
Brussels is preparing to back down over a Brexit fishing deal and acknowledge for the first time that European fleets do not have an automatic right to fish in British waters. In a concession to help to unlock negotiations, Michel Barnier is understood to accept that the UK will have to be treated as an independent coastal state and have annual negotiations with the bloc over fishing quotas from next year. The EU’s chief negotiator told European diplomats that the compromise would have to wait until other parts of the deal were closer to being finalised. >click to read< 22:19
Danish fishing communities fear Brexit could sink them
In the small fishing town of Thyboron on the northwestern coast of Denmark, many fishermen worry the British waters they have become increasingly dependent on will be out of reach when Britain leaves the European Union.,,, Since the 1970s, EU fishermen have had access to British waters under a deal, that many in Britain saw as unfair. Now some see Brexit as a chance to “take back control” of their waters and keep foreign vessels out. “This town could end up closing down because of Brexit,” says fisherman Michael Bork, 36, who has been fishing since the age of 10. 31 images>click to read<10:40
Fish fights: Britain has a long history of trading away access to coastal waters
The British boats were outnumbered by about eight to one by the French. Before long there were collisions and projectiles were thrown. The British were forced to retreat, returning to port with broken windows but luckily no injuries. The conflict behind this skirmish between British and French fishers in the Bay de Seine at the end of August 2018 was quickly dubbed the “scallop war” in the press. The French had been trying to prevent the British scallop dredgers from legally fishing the beds in French national waters. But the incident exposed tensions that have been simmering for many years. >click to read<11:23
U.K. to End Half Century of Fishing Rights in Brexit Slap to EU
Prime Minister Theresa May will pull Britain out of the 1964 London convention that allows European fishing vessels to access waters as close as six to twelve nautical miles from the U.K. coastline. Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union was already going to stop fishing by European boats within 12 to 200 nautical miles (22 to 370 kilometers) of British shores, but this move goes even further in terminating historic rights enjoyed by France, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands that predate the U.K.’s own entry into the EU. “For the first time in more than fifty years we will be able to decide who can access our waters,”,,, click here to read the story 19:34
A Rare Albino Haddock!
Fishermen have landed an extremely rare ‘albino’ haddock at estimated odds of one in 100,000,000. The incredible catch was made about 45 miles north of Unst — the most northerly inhabited island in Britain — on the weekend. And it has now been put in a freezer by scientists who want to preserve it for future research. The haddock was caught by the local fishing boat Resilient (LK 195) and taken to a fish market in Lerwick, Shetland. It was picked up by marine experts from the University of the Highlands and Islands who said they had never come across anything like it. Leanna Henderson, a marine technician at the university’s NAFC marine centre, said the ‘golden’ haddock had no pigment in its skin. Read the story here 10:54
40 Years Ago, The Last Cod War Was Sparked
40 years ago yesterday, Iceland expanded its territorial waters from 50 to 200 miles, igniting the third – and last – of the Cod Wars, ending in Icelandic victory. As RÚV reports, October 15, 1975 marked the first time any nation declared for itself 200 nautical miles of territorial waters. The decision did not go unnoticed by the rest of the world, and the British in particular had objections, as they engaged in a considerable amount of fishing in the area Iceland was claiming for itself. What followed would be the most violent of the three Cod Wars. Read the rest here Video here 17:20
