Tag Archives: Parliament

Labour needs to fix British fishing – will it stand by its principles now it is in power?

The question now is whether Labour will use its landslide majority to fix the extraordinary neglect of our marine environment that it previously lacked the votes for. Back in 2020, when the fisheries bill was making its way through parliament, Labour’s fisheries spokesperson, Luke Pollard, made the case that the prime objective of the bill should be sustainability: there should be a duty on ministers to take the advice of scientists when allocating fishing opportunities so as to avoid overfishing. He also argued that as the right to fish was a public asset, which ministers conceded during the course of the bill, preference should be given to the part of the fleet which had the highest levels of employment and the lowest environmental impact: the smaller boats, whose activities are limited naturally by the weather. more, >>CLICK TO READ 08:24

SEA-NL questions federal candidate Mary Shortall’s commitment to inshore fish harvesters

“As a labour leader Mary Shortall turned her back on the fishermen and women of Newfoundland and Labrador in favour of the union executive,” says Ryan Cleary. “The question must be asked, who will Mary Shortall stand for if she’s elected to Parliament: workers or the union and party executive?” Cleary points out that as President of the Federation of Labour, Shortall failed to react to a 2016 Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court decision, later upheld on appeal in favour of inshore scallop harvesters who took their union to court over a compensation fund for lost fishing grounds in the Strait of Belle Isle. In the court case, it was revealed the FFAW-Unifor had negotiated a compensation package with Nalcor without permission of scallop harvesters. >click to read< 09:41

Britain’s High Court deals blow to UK Brexit hopes

Brexit-jpgBritain’s prime minister cannot trigger Brexit single-handedly, the country’s High Court has ruled, in a decision that embarrassed the government and gave new hope to ‘Remainers’. After a high-stakes argument over the balance of power between Parliament and the Crown, the court ruled unanimously that the ‘royal prerogative’ did not give the government power to start the legal process of taking Britain out of the European Union. Prime minister Theresa May had planned to trigger the ‘Article 50’ treaty exit clause by the end of March, but must now first seek the approval of parliament. This will open the door to Remainers who wish to dilute or even block Brexit. Read the story here 17:11