fishing is a relatively small industry
in the uk but it's always been
central to brexit it connects to notions
of sovereignty and fairness
it connects to fierce passion on both
sides and the uk's trade negotiators
know
there are clear expectations have the
best fishing grounds
and europe has taken advantage of that
40 years and we want
to take our grounds back focus on
fishing
is constant in the brexit process and
the idea that a country should decide
who fish is in its waters has
a persuasive logic as this english
fisherman puts it
we're an island nation and let's profit
from air seas
the uk government is in sync with that
saying it will decide who fishes in our
waters and on what terms but what sounds
simple is proving far from it
not least because the uk helped create
the situation it now wants to change
let's start with deals done in the 70s
by the uk and its neighbors
they are the basis of the quota system
that the eu uses
this is how it works here's the uk's
exclusive economic zone marked in red
but if you're in the eu it's not
exclusive everyone's zones are treated
as a single shared resource
each country gets a quota based on their
fishing catches in the 70s
and individual fishermen and companies
can then own a part of that national
quota
and that allows them to fish a certain
amount so that's the system
then in the 90s some fishing rights
changed some quotas lost value
and some english fishermen sold their
quotas to foreign businesses
they voluntarily gave up their right to
fish
their own waters and in that time those
quotas
gained value the bbc found that by 2019
over half of the value of england's
fishing quota was controlled by vessels
in foreign ownership the same was true
in wales though
in scotland the figure is much lower so
because of the eu quota system because
of foreign ownership
both of which the uk agreed to europe's
boats have been operating in uk waters
for
years and from a european perspective
there are good arguments for this to
continue
the first is that a way of life is at
stake if we can't enter british waters
it's practically the end of our
profession
and emmanuel macron is clear he says he
won't let that happen
in no circumstances will our fishermen
be sacrificed to brexit
the second argument is that the uk
doesn't have a domestic market for some
of its fish
take herring for example european fish
companies argue either they catch it and
sell it or
english people have to learn to eat
herring a lot of it
but for all the european arguments of
course brexit is a reality
the uk is opting out of the eu's quota
system
and we are heading for an inevitable
reset on fishing
some argue the eu has yet to accept this
the analyst but
rahman says the eu position on fish is
absurd
essentially it's everything changes
because of brexit but on fish
it stays the same and perhaps the point
is that fishing despite being a
relatively small industry
is in fact about everything it's about
the uk's sense of sovereignty it's about
brexiteers keeping promises
it's about the eu demonstrating its
collective strength
and one last thing on that here are the
eu's core principles for brexit
negotiations
look closely and you'll read nothing is
agreed
until everything is agreed and that's
where phishing finds itself
part of a far larger conversation about
how the uk and the eu
interact compromises are inevitable
resources
will still be shared and that includes
to some degree
the uk's fish