EU Referendum

Showing posts with label fishing. Show all posts

scottishcornishmed[i-scottishcornishmed]... when we were interested in headlines such as Fishermen despair at 'crippling' EU rules. There was even a time when the fishermens' plight would make the front pages of the national dailies, with tense debates in the House of Commons.

And plight it is. John Buchan, a "top north-east skipper" is warning that the white fish fleet is facing its biggest crisis for 30 years and has called for urgent action to stop boats being forced out of business.

But his plea only gets as far as the Aberdeen Press and Journal. It will get no further. It is not that people don't care. Many do – passionately. But the issue is bound up in a sense of futility, hopelessness and despair.

It does not matter what we think. There is nothing we can do about this. There is nothing our MPs can do about it. And Mr Cameron's Tories have set their face against doing anything, having abandoned Howard's pledge to repatriate fishing policy.

So, we stop writing about it. People stop discussing it. There is no point in either. You might just as well complain about the colour of the moon. And therein lies the victory of the EU – it has worn us down with its own inertia and we have given up.

Except we haven't. Our resolve has never wavered. When or if the Irish roll over on Friday and bow to the pressure of the "colleagues", our resolve will not waver. But we have no illusions. Getting the UK out of the EU is going to take some time. And, by the time we succeed, there will be no fishing industry left, worth talking about.

Call it a casualty of war. And there will be more before we prevail.

COMMENT THREAD

Legare[i-Legare]
We hear so much about the good intentions of the trans-national EU and how much it helps Africa – like when it steals its fish in highly dubious deals on fishing rights. What African littoral states need though, more than anything, is practical help in policing their own waters, better to protect their fish from predatory fishing fleets and to support artisan fishermen.

In small measure, that help is there – not enough, but it is something. But it is not the EU that steps up to the plate ... it could not and, even if it could, it would not. No, the help comes from another nation state, the United States.

Pictured is the Yu Feng, a Taiwanese-flagged fishing vessel suspected of illegal fishing activity, moves through the water off the coast of Freetown, Sierra Leone, on 17 August, before being boarded by US Coast Guardsmen from USCGC Legare (WMEC 912) and representatives of the Sierra Leone armed forces maritime wing, Fisheries Ministry and Office of National Security.

Legare is on a three-month deployment as part of Africa Partnership Station, an international initiative developed by US Naval Forces Europe and Africa to work with U.S. and international partners to improve maritime safety and security in Africa. (DoD photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Shawn Eggert, US Coast Guard/Released.)

COMMENT THREAD

Alberto_Saiz[i-Alberto_Saiz]Some light relief for our readers while the boss concentrates on the really important news of the day. But it seems that in some countries highly placed officials resign after being accused of misusing public money.

The chap in question is The Director of the Spanish Secret Service, CNI, Alberto Sáiz, who resigned after several weeks of revelations and claims about him in the press, led by newspaper El Mundo.

There are some entertaining aspects to the story:

The paper printed a list of claims saying that Sáiz had made private use of the CNI facilities, including international hunting and fishing trips, and used his post to help family and friends.

When the revelations about him surfaced in the press he was then accused of using sophisticated lie detector equipment against his own agents in an attempt to track down the leaks to the press.

I wonder why some of our people, politicians and officials have not thought of those "sophisticated lie detectors". Or, perhaps, they did and they do not work any more than the less sophisticated thumb screws do.

The Times has some details on the accusations.

COMMENT THREAD

Caucus+race[i-Caucus+race]
No this is not a posting about Kipling's great poem (that would not belong to this blog) but a short musing on the Conservative Party's change of heart (if there is, indeed, a change) over governance and, in particular, the European issue.

In preparation to the debate on the BBC I thought I had better glance through the Boy-King's speech about which the boss has blogged several times. (In particular, here.) On the whole, I avoid politicians' speeches, on the grounds that they rarely say anything of interest and are, in any case, written by a team of talented speech writers. (No, not Daniel Hannan or Douglas Carswell, as ConHome pointed out.)

My first reaction was that it was not too bad a speech for the Boy-King, though the routine attack on bankers was tiresome. No, they did not break the economy - that was the governments, both in Brussels and nearer home - and they pay a very high level of taxes on their salary, bonuses and benefits in kind. Can Mr Cameron say the same about himself and his colleagues?

Nor am I too impressed by the crocodile tear shed over the fact that people now see the state for the enemy that it is and not an ally. Historically, the state was seen as the enemy by the English (and the Scots and the Welsh, and let's not even talk about the Irish in that respect). The fact that there was a relatively short blip from, roughly speaking, the 1820s to, again roughly speaking, the 1930s during which Britain, almost uniquely, had good governance, that is light but ever-growing governance is irrelevant. The surprising thing that it has taken this long for people to shake off the ideas they acquired in the space of just one century.

Most of the rest of the speech is blather. But if he really means what he says about the need for "massive, sweeping, radical redistribution of power"; if he really means that we need to take back power from Brussels (method, as usual unspecified); if the Conservative Party is really going to put the idea of returning power to the people and making government once more accountable by restoring it to these shores then we need to ask what is the motivation here.

Well, of course, we all know the answer. There is only one thing that motivates politicians and that is fear of losing votes. The Conservatives are rightly worried about those eurosceptic votes that they thought belonged to them. These may well go somewhere else next week with far fewer Tory members in the Toy Parliament than expected.

So, we can conclude that support for those small parties does work, no matter what the Tory boys and girls tell us: it puts pressure on the party to change its policies. Of course, we do not know yet whether the Boy-King's pronouncements will find their way into specific policies but there is only one way of making sure they do: keep the pressure on them. It really can work.

Which reminds me, ToryBoy blog has also alerted everyone to another pronouncement by the ineffable John Redwood. I am grateful to Jonathan Isaby because I do not consider the man's self-promoting blog essential reading.

In a posting, entitled "Power to the People" (dear, oh dear - that was cool aeons ago) John Redwood informs his readers that he has already outlined what the next Conservative government will have to do to reclaim power from Brussels.

Easy - don't give away any more vetoes and take some back.

Restoring the veto for future laws is no longer sufficient, as too many laws of a kind we do not want have been passed already. A renegotiation for powers back has to encompass the right to remove EU laws we do not like in areas where the veto has been restored.

Two big areas of spending are fishing and agriculture. Neither of these policies have worked well. We need our own control of our fishing grounds, as I have often argued. We need agricultural reform, which should include more being done nationally and locally.

And we are going to do this how?

COMMENT THREAD

Fishes[i-Fishes]We've got it all wrong on fishing strategy, says EU – at least that is the "take" of The Times. It tells us that the EU commission is admitting that Europe's fishing industry is on the brink of suicide and several species are in danger of extinction after 25 years of policy failure.

Officials, we are then told, have admitted five key failings in the EU's Common Fisheries Policy as they prepared to tear up the idea of a centrally dictated strategy. They have launched the search for an alternative, saying that much of the responsibility for fishing must be returned to EU member states.

This would seem to contradict one of my immutable laws of government - that stupid institutions can never admit their own stupidity. However, not is all quite as it seems – there is more than a little spinning going on.

The EU Green Paper is far from as contrite as The Times would suggest. It starts off by claiming:

The EU Common Fisheries Policy has become streamlined and is now considerably cheaper and simpler to manage. Decision-making allows for specific technical decisions to be taken with closer involvement of fishers. Fishing operators are given incentives to behave responsibly but they are also expected to demonstrate that they comply with the basic principles of the CFP. Stakeholders fully participate in decisions and debates on policy implementation. Fisheries control has become far more effective.

The paper then goes on to offer a series of options, ostensibly for the better management of the Common Fisheries Policy, thereby ignoring the central and irredeemable defect of the policy – the very fact that it is a common policy. Furthermore, these are but proposals and there is a long way to go before any of them see the light of day – if at all.

Nevertheless, it is at least something that, after 25 years, the EU is recognising that one of its longest established policies has failed. It has yet to understand, however, the reason for that failure.

COMMENT THREAD

Booker+fish+3[i-Booker+fish+3]
While our gaze is on distant lands, and we concern ourselves about peace, stability and the welfare of the population in Afghanistan, we have troubles here at home.

As Booker explains today, we are starting to see the end game that, before too long, is going to need the Army back here – to keep public order.

We now know, writes Booker, where the EU's Common Fisheries Policy, brought into being after Edward Heath gave away Britain's fishing waters in 1973, has ended up. The answer is in Walton Prison, Liverpool, a notoriously tough jail where two respected fishermen from Northern Ireland, Charlie McBride and his son Charles, are currently incarcerated.

Booker suggests that the story is "shocking", but it is much, much more than that. It is a travesty, an appalling example of how our ruling elites have become so oppressive and so all-powerful that they are no longer part of us, or represent us – but are indeed our oppressors.

The story (or at least, this part of it) starts in December 2007 when the two McBrides appeared in Liverpool Crown Court, having pleaded guilty earlier in the year to misidentifying catches of fish for which they had no quota under EU rules.

But instead of just asking for fines to be imposed on fishermen who break quota rules, the Marine Fisheries Agency (MFA) now has a new tactic. It calls in the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) to use the Proceeds of Crime Act, designed to recover money from international drugs traffickers, money launderers and other major criminals.

Soca – which last year replaced the Assets Recovery Agency, after it had spent £65 million to recover £23 million – assumes that if someone has benefited from the proceeds of crime for more than six months, he is living "a criminal lifestyle". Everything he owns can then be deemed to have derived from criminal activity.

In the case of Charlie and Charles McBride, all their assets were thus valued at more than £1 million, including their boat and homes (valued at the height of the property boom).

On this basis Judge Nigel Gilmour not only imposed on them fines of £385,000 – infinitely more than the value of the fish they had wrongly declared – but ruled that all their assets should be frozen as "proceeds of crime", even though the home and boat had been bought before the offences were committed. He also told the men that, unless they paid the fines within six months, they would go to prison for up to three years.

At their wits' end as to how to raise the money, the two McBrides negotiated a second mortgage on their homes. Charlie McBride presented Soca with £120,000, asking that it should be taken as a down-payment on the fine until he had somehow found the rest.

The agency asked how he had come by the money and, when told that it came from remortgaging his house, told him that he would be charged with contempt of court because the house was a "frozen asset".

Two weeks ago the two men were accordingly jailed for contempt, and having been allowed one telephone call to tell his wife Karen what had happened, Charlie is now serving out his sentence as a prison refuse collector.

So delighted is the MFA at discovering the Proceeds of Crime Act that it has used this sledgehammer tactic twice more in the past year. Three Thames fishermen were fined £317,000 for catching sole for which they had no quota. (Most of the UK sole quota had been given to foreign fishermen.)

In January the owners and skippers of six Newlyn boats were fined £188,000 for catching hake for which they had no quota (though hake were abundant). Among those fined were an 83-year-old widow, Doreen Hicks, and 82-year-old Donald Turtle and his wife Joan. They were found guilty by Judge Wassell because they were part owners of boats skippered by their sons.

In all these cases, the absurdly disproportionate fines have caused serious hardship; but the McBrides are the first fishermen who have been not only ruined but sent to jail, thanks to the ruthless war waged by the MFA. Concludes Booker:

When Mr Heath gave away Britain's fishing waters 36 years ago, his ministers lied to Parliament by pretending that we still retained control of our waters out to 12 miles. But even Mr Heath cannot have foreseen the day when, thanks to the zeal of British officials and judges, our fishermen would end up alongside violent criminals in a Liverpool prison.

That is Booker's conclusion. Others will (and have) drawn different conclusions. One of those is that, when the tumbrels do finally roll, a first class seat will have to be reserved for Judge Nigel Gilmour, who should be amongst the first to visit la Madame.

There does become a point in the history of any nation where those who govern no longer have the consent of those who are governed. That point passed some time ago, but it is the treatment of the likes of the McBrides which brings it home to us how far down that road we have travelled.

At the end of that road is civil disorder, anarchy and then war, as the people rise up and slaughter their oppressors. It may not happen in my lifetime. But, if it does I rather suspect that, if I am not actually part of the throng, I will be standing in the streets applauding as we rid ourselves of the incubus that has become our government and our ruling élite.

As for the innocent, the Crusader dictum will apply - Caedite eos! Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.

COMMENT THREAD

Irish+boat[i-Irish+boat]Irish fishermen are unhappy with the EU, according to the Irish Times, which is hardly surprising as they have fared almost as badly from the CFP as British fishermen.

What is really interesting though is the response from the Irish fisheries minister, Tony Killeen, which demonstrates quite how seriously the EU erodes national powers.

First though, the issue which is causing the ire of the fishermen is the EU's days-at-sea rule controlling the catches of the whitefish fleet which, it is claimed, unfairly penalise those who have fished less over the last decade.

The days at sea scheme, which rations the days fishermen are allowed to leave port, is being applied on the basis of recent track record, as a "conservation measure". But the problem is that those fishermen who co-operated with earlier conservation schemes and thereby fished less are now being awarded fewer days than those who did not.

At the moment, the scheme is being applied on a three-month trial basis along a limited section of the coast, principally affecting Donegal fishermen, and they are looking to the fisheries minister for relief from what is clearly an unfair anomaly.

And this is what makes Killeen's reaction interesting. He had discussions with the fishing federation at the weekend, when his response not to offer any amelioration but simply to argue that it could have been worse.

But for the government's action, he said, the scheme could have applied to the whole of the Celtic Sea. "The reality of EU fisheries councils is that you don't get everything you want. If we had refused to co-operate, this measure would have been applied further around the coastline," Mr Killeen said.

That's the reality of membership of the EU. You accept something you don't want, and would not have done if you were still an independent nation, on the basis that, if you do not accept it, you get something considerably worse.

Then, in the scheme of things, the minister parades this as a "victory" and expects a pat on the back. That is now how the system works.

COMMENT THREAD

taxpayer-alliance[i-taxpayer-alliance]Dear officers and researchers of the Taxpayers' Alliance,

It does not make me at all happy to have to write this letter. I have been a vocal and admiring supporter of your organization since its inception and have even blogged about its work, here and here.

The boss, on the other hand, has attacked you on a number of occasions and accused you of not really understanding the EU and its ramifications. I know you don't like those attacks and I don't blame you. When the boss goes into battle fur flies. I also know that in private conversation many of you say that, of course, you do understand that VAT is an EU tax and campaigning against one bit of it is a waste of time but it is a good thing to get people worked up about one issue so they can progress to others. Somehow the second half of it never happens but that's politics.

So, let's move on to recent developments. A little while ago you announced that together with Global Vision you were intending to raise the issue of "Europe" in the run-up to the elections in June. An admirable thing to do though the first effort of that campaign, another poll that showed most of those asked wanting "a loosening of ties with the EU", was, as the boss explained an example of fudging the issue. To put it bluntly, it ain't on offer.

Changing the terms of our membership requires a re-writing of the treaties and that requires an IGC, which has to reach a unanimous agreement. To reach that we have to offer something in return for that ill-defined looser membership. I doubt if the people asked in that poll know this and I am reasonably sure that they were not told by the pollsters.

Ah but it raises their consciousness (to use a Marxist term). Perhaps, but to use false arguments achieves nothing and puts the cause in jeopardy. If the other side lies and we lie, why should people choose our lies over theirs?

So we come to your latest effort in matters European – campaigning about the CFP. I welcome everyone who joins the anti-CFP campaign. All of us, veterans of the fight, do so. As it happens I couldn't get to your demo outside the European Parliament building in Queen Anne's Gate (why the European Parliament of all the institutions?) but it looked jolly. Maybe I should have gone for the t-shirt – my very old Save Britain's Fish shirt has finally given up the ghost.

You have also produced a report on the sorry state of affairs in the fishing industry, one that was mentioned in various media outlets. I recall previous reports being mentioned in the very same outlets and the same shock-horror tone being adopted. But, actually, I must be wrong. Because this is, according to your blurb, the first full report on the Common Fisheries Policy and the effect it has had on the industry and the state of the fish supply.

Save_Britains_fish[i-Save_Britains_fish]Now this puzzled me. Because I recall doing many research papers and briefings on the subject, some of which included figures; I recall attending a huge rally of fishermen in Central Hall many years ago; taking part in numerous, packed-to-the-rafts fringe meetings at party conferences at which the speakers produced much information and many figures; being a speaker in debates on the subject; reading well grounded and carefully calculated reports by Save Britain's Fish; questions and debates in both Houses of Parliament. Clearly, none of this happened; nobody did any research and nobody managed to produce any figures before. I began to wonder whether I existed at all.

So I spoke to one or two people and was assured that yes, I did exist and yes, all those events did take place. There were research papers and meetings and debates; there was a carefully constructed policy paper by Owen Paterson, which had a good deal of input from the boss and which, unlike your own rather cautious report, actually offered alternative ideas (much debated by fishermen and their organizations); and yes, there was this book called The Great Deception that had a good deal about the CFP in it; and let's not even mention the many articles by Christopher Booker and postings on EUReferendum (far, far too many to link to but is easy enough to do through the search engine and just to whet your appetite, here is one).

I even telephoned Tom Hay the founder and first chairman of the Fishermen's Association Ltd up in Peterhead (where there is no snow). Yes, apparently he exists as well and remains a source of much information on the subject.

The point is not that you produce figures of your own (which seem a little thinly sourced, by the way) or that you give your own account of how the policy developed (which appears to leave certain crucial events out) but that you do not acknowledge those who had done the work before you. Acknowledging other people's work is not only courteous but sensible from your point of view: it looks better if your research can quote other sources.

I cannot help feeling that the campaign to raise awareness of Europe is a way of making the Conservative Party seem to be the real eurosceptic party for the European election in June. That, I suspect, is why you want to "own" the topic while making sure that discussion does not outrun the party's policy. Of course, I may be wrong but the timing, the refusal to refer to anyone before you and the timidity of the actual proposals (as well as the vagueness of the facts) all point in that direction.

It cannot have pleased you that the Boy-King of the Conservative Party decided to bring Ken Clarke back to the front bench (though in a surprisingly lowly position for someone who was once Chancellor of the Exchequer). That move has undercut all attempts to replace UKIP with the Conservative Party as the eurosceptics' preferred choice.

link[i-link]So, here is what I suggest. I shall not call on you to stick with subjects you deal with so supremely well – the public sector in this country, its bloated officials and the waste that goes with it. After all, if you do that, you may avoid Scylla but will hit Charybdis. It will be pointed out to you that a good deal of the expense you talk about is imposed on local councils by the EU and cannot be avoided. That, of course, does not apply to the fat-cat salaries and those non-jobs you write about.

My idea is that you continue the sterling work you have been doing on the public sector. Keep drumming it into people's minds that it is bloated, wasteful and useless; that its employees do not do the work out of the goodness of their hearts but get high salaries and excellent perks at our expense; that high taxes is not the way forward and it is possible to cut them and to cut the bureaucracy that stifles us at the same time.

However, may I humbly suggest that when you get to "European matters" you stop pretending that you own the subject? Look around you. A good deal of work has been done and is being done. Use it and acknowledge it. That is the way forward. We are all happy to answer questions and to give information. But none of us like being told that we do not exist and have never existed.

Deal?

COMMENT THREAD

Booker+fish+2[i-Booker+fish+2]Having been professionally and emotionally involved (not a happy combination) in the fate of Britain's fishing industry, Booker's column today makes painful reading.

It is the final chapter in the destruction of our once-proud and profitable industry, torn apart by the combined depredations of the EU's Common Fisheries Policy and the wilful zealotary of our own loathsome officials, permitted by the acquiescence of our politicians and the stupidity and malign myopia of the media.

This is a policy which, as Booker observes, has 82-year old Doreen Hicks weeping in the dock after being given a criminal record, fines and costs of £3,500, on threat of imprisonment, just because she was named as a part-owner of her family's fishing boat.

Yet such is malign effect it has on the professional claque of "environmentalists" that we have that extremely unpleasant fool Charles Clover prattling on that "fraudulent fishermen everywhere, even in the EU, lower the price of fish for legal fishermen and kill more fish than they should, depleting scarce stocks that belong to us all."

This landmark case, writes Clover, "is a milestone towards making that kind of behaviour socially unacceptable at last." Booker has his own riposte.

Booker also sheds some light on the Anglesey Aluminium saga, identifying the EU dimension.

The immediate problem is that the Anglesey plant relies heavily on constant supplies of electricity and is supplied at a discount price by the nearby Wylfa nuclear power station. This is now state-owned through the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). If the NDA was privately owned, it says it would be happy to carry on selling power to its largest customer at a discount. But under EU state-aid rules this is now "against the law".

So it has been announced last week that the pant is to close next September, with the loss of 500 jobs. Thanks so much, the EU. Again it has shown yet its capacity to destroy.

As ever more of British industry disappears, writes Booker, with Lord Mandelson predicting that even the City of London will emerge from the slump much reduced, it seems we shall soon have to live on air. Then, when Brussels discovers that air contains carbon dioxide will even that be beyond our reach?

COMMENT THREAD

Mahon[i-Mahon]
In the wake of last week's report on a "new" Tory policy on fishing, Booker has this week taken a wider look at discarding in his column.

The issues are personalised around a good friend of us both, Mick Mahon, a Newlyn fisherman who has done much to bring to light the criminal madness of the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy. And, after 25 years of living with the lunacy of the policy, Mick has had enough and has decided he will discard no more. Instead, he is "waiving the rules" and landing all the fish he catches. He gives them away to the Fishermens' mission for charity.

This has so bemused the local fisheries inspector, whose officious zeal has made him the most unpopular man in Newlyn, that his only response do far has been to threaten the mission with prosecution for accepting Mick's charitable gifts.

Of course, if every fisherman in the country did likewise, and was prepared to stand up to the tide of regulation that is progressively destroying the industry, then at least we would have a fighting chance. But, over the years, most fishermen - and especially their representatives - have sought accommodations with our provincial government, in the hope that they could continue to make a living.

This strategy has not worked and now it is left to the likes of Mick to make his defiant but ultimately forlorn gesture, his last shout before he retires from a dying industry, destroyed by the combined effects of a treacherous Ted Heath, supine MPPs (Members of the Provincial Parliament) and over-zealous officialdom.

In years to come, there should be a monument in Trafalgar Square to mark the passing of the British fishing industry, and Mick would make a good model for it. But it should also be a monument to mark the passing of our independence. In that the death of that industry is symbolic of our craven subservience to an alien form of government, the monument would serve as well to mark the loss of that independence.

Perhaps though, rather than Mick, the monument should be a statue of an elephant, made of glass, so that busy passers-by can ignore it completely, as indeed so many do the thing it would represent.

COMMENT THREAD

Arctic+ice+02347[i-Arctic+ice+02347]Published by Canada.com is a jolly little tale about how the EU has taken it upon itself to declare the Arctic region part of Europe's "immediate vicinity" and thus invite itself as a party to talks over the future of polar exploitation.

Even though the commission concedes that the European Union has "no direct coastline on the Arctic Ocean", having decided on this fabled, "immediate vicinity" status, it is thus proposing that all nations which do actually have direct coastlines should conform with "binding international standards" to govern offshore oil extraction. And, of course, the EU should have a hand in framing those "standards".

This move, says Canada.com (rather appropriately under the circumstances) is likely to prompt "a cold stare" from Canada and some other polar nations. But, undeterred, the Commission has still gone ahead an issued a report asserting its growing interest in the natural resources and environmental health of "the rapidly melting Arctic Ocean".

This, the commission proudly declares, its "first step towards and EU Arctic Policy", which it believes is "an important contribution to implementing the Integrated Maritime Policy for the EU."

To that effect, it has identified three main "policy objectives", which are: protecting and preserving the Arctic in unison with its population (presumably the polar bears); promoting sustainable use of resources; and contributing to "enhanced Arctic multilateral governance".

To bolster its claims to being a party to this "enhanced Arctic multilateral governance", it has opened a "thematic website", which proudly offers an "action plan" for the "EU and the Arctic region".

There, it tells us that the EU is inextricably linked to the Arctic Region (hereafter referred to as the Arctic) by a unique combination of history, geography, economy and scientific achievements. Three member states - Denmark (Greenland), Finland and Sweden - have territories in the Arctic. Two other Arctic states - Iceland and Norway - are members of the European Economic Area. Furthermore, Canada, Russia and the United States are strategic partners of the EU.

The problem for the ever-ambitious EU is that Finland and Sweden, as well as the EU-associated "economic partner" Iceland do not have Arctic Ocean coastlines. Those three nations were not invited to attend a Greenland summit in May that resulted in the five-nation Ilulissat Declaration - an explicit rejection of any new multilateral frameworks for governing future economic activity in the Arctic.

While noting that Canada and the four other signatories to the Ilulissat Declaration have committed to the "orderly settlement of any overlapping claims" in the Arctic, the commission's report pointedly states that "since then, several of them have announced steps extending or affirming their national jurisdiction and strengthening their Arctic presence."

This, of course, simply will not do for the commission. National jurisdiction, as we all know, is an anathema to the EU, not least because, "Climate change might bring increased productivity in some fish stocks and changes in spatial distributions of others."

Even worse, "New areas may become attractive for fishing with increased access due to reduced sea ice coverage. For some of the Arctic high seas waters there is not yet an international conservation and management regime in place." This, the commission says, with more than a hint of desperation, "might lead to unregulated fisheries." You can sense rather than see the stress on the word "unregulated", the ultimate of all horrors.

One is almost tempted to snigger quietly at the back of the room at the chutzpah of these people, except they are serious. They will keep plugging away in the hope that they wear down the other players and eventually get their way.

However, since much of the new EU policy is predicated on the premise that there is that "rapidly melting Arctic Ocean", perhaps someone might do them a favour and take the commission for a trip into the ice fields and show them what we can all see from the satellite pics – that the Arctic Ocean ain't melting.

Whoever does this kind deed, though, would do us all an even greater favour by leaving them all there.

COMMENT THREAD

FISH+-+006s[i-FISH+-+006s]So low down on the news agenda is it that, even though The Sunday Telegraph offers a short, five paragraph piece on it in the print edition, even this newspaper does not seem concerned enough to post the story online. It will, therefore, be missed by commentators who surf the net for their news.

The story itself is headed, "Tories pledge to end fish dumping" – the obscene practice of "discards" which is a central feature of the EU's Common Fisheries Policy, about which Christopher Booker has written so much and which had kept this blog continually exercised, most recently here.

So, if the Tories are pledging to end this obscenity, this must surely be good news, except for the fact that it should already be Tory policy. That it became so, briefly, was happily announced by Booker in his column on 8 January 2005. That was the day before Owen Paterson, then shadow fisheries minister, launched his consultation paper on fisheries, which included the unilateral repatriation of the CFP, an event which was also recorded by this blog.

This policy had in fact been adopted by Michael Howard, the former Tory leader who, after frenetic behind-the-scenes negotiations, affirmed it on 10 June 2004, after a clear statement at the Scottish Conservative Party Conference in Dundee on 14 June 2004, again recorded by this blog.

However, with the accession of David Cameron to the leadership of the Tory Party, after its earlier defeat in the general election, the policy was quietly ditched, without even a formal statement to that effect.

So, here we are, more than three years later and, once again, it looks as if the policy is back. But, as we all know to our cost, appearances can be deceptive. What we learn is that Bill Wiggin, now the shadow fisheries minister, has apparently discussed new proposals with Joe Borg, the EU fishing commissioner. From these discussions, what David Cameron's new "conservative" party now has in mind is – according to The Sunday Telegraph - as follows:

The party is seeking EU support for a pilot scheme that would require British fishermen to land and report all fish caught and killed in the catching process.

From a robust, principled stand, where the Tories would reassert control over a valuable national asset, and re-introduce a proper and effective management system, David Cameron now proposes that his fisheries minister in a new Tory government would do what Tory ministers have always done since the very first days when we joined the then Common Market.

He will go cap-in-hand to Brussels and there he will say "pretty please" to our real masters, and ask if they would, very kindly, allow us to stop doing something which, had we been a sovereign nation, we would never have actually done in the first place.

That is what it has come to. That is what we always suspected might happen and that gives us the revealing clue as to Mr Cameron's real policy towards the European Union … more of the same, as it has always been. What we can't say, however, is that we have been betrayed. We never expected any different from Mr Cameron.

The question is, on this basis, are we expected to vote for the Conservative Party? And, if so, how are they different from Labour?

COMMENT THREAD

FISH+-+rusty+boat[i-FISH+-+rusty+boat]We've written about it before, most recently in June last year and then again in the January of the same year.

This is engrenage - not talked about much in polite company and if you mention it to the average politician of journalist, you will be greeted with a blank stare. Yet, in our June post, we explained that this mechanism, loosely translated as gearing is one of the major drivers of political integration within the European Union.

We even went so far as to explain the mechanism, even in the certain knowledge that many of those who should know will steer clear of this blog, like it was the plague, and this remain in their desired state of blissful ignorance. For the rest, those of us who have ambitions to drive the tumbrels or cheer their passing, we wrote thus:

First of all, it prevents member states implementing their own controls in a vital policy area (such as immigration), and then starts to regulate in these areas itself. The regulation is invariably incomplete and functions poorly, requiring more legislation. It is then not long before there are demands for additional laws, whence the EU commission happily obliges with proposals – grandly declaring that the member states are calling for "more Europe".

So it is that we see another example of the mechanism, this one relating to what qualifies – despite intense competition – as one of the most disastrous policy yet to be devised by the EU, the Common Fisheries Policy.

Through this dire, bureaucratic construct, the EU has managed to devastate the fishing grounds of the member states and, in particular, the formerly teeming waters of the Continental shelf around the UK, variously reckoned to have held some 80 percent of the commercial fishing stocks in the waters that come within the boundaries of the EU member states.

But, all-encompassing though it might be – there is one huge gap in the policy. It leaves the enforcement of the EU fisheries laws to the member states. And having turned commercial fishing virtually a criminal activity, having demonised fishermen and driven most of them into penury or alternative livelihood, the EU commission is complaining that those foolhardy or desperate enough to remain in the industry are not being fined enough by their member state courts when they fall foul of EU rules, and that there is too much variation in fines for similar offences in the different member state courts.

Thus, in an absolutely classic example of engrenage the commission is asking member states to approve "dramatically tougher enforcement of fishing rules". There is no word, of course, of the EU itself having created a conservation disaster and an entirely unworkable, which creates the very "criminals" to whom the "tougher enforcement" should apply.

Instead, it invokes visions of "motherhood and apple pie", pleading that this move is necessary to "stop years of illegal catches that have devastated species such as cod and tuna."

With such noble ambitions declared – quietly sliding over the real agenda, the pursuit of political integration – the commission thus proposes that EU officials would receive new powers to pursue fishermen in their home countries for offences such as fishing in protected spawning areas or out of season for threatened species. Inefficient and costly checks at sea would be replaced by reinforced investigations at port.

Needless to say the fishermen must be punished severely under this new regime, with fines rising to as much as €300,000 for serious breaches of (EU) fishing rules - 100 times greater than current fines in some cases. Repeat offenders could lose their permits.

To bolster his case, EU fisheries commissioner Joe Borg declares that low fines and weak enforcement by some member states "makes a mockery" of the EU's "tough catch quotas," calling in aid one of its favoured captive NGOs, the WWF, to support it.

But, while the WWF exudes horror at the supposed depredation of the evil fishermen – thereby seeking to enlist the approval of all "right-minded people", who have been indoctrinated with decades of "anti-fishermen" propaganda – the EU gets a new brick in the growing edifice of its common judicial system, with a uniform application of fines across the EU, monitored and controlled, of course, by the EU commission.

We have already seen a similar attempt with EU environmental laws, this one driven through the ECJ, but this is the first overt attempt to standardise penalties through the direct application of a new EU law.

If successful, this will set a stronger precedent for a system of common penalties throughout the EU. In the fullness of time, possibly after the passage of many years, the commission will then look to encroachment into another policy area. And so, slowly, steadily and inexorably, the process of engrenage does its deadly work, so stealthily and cleverly that hardly anyone notices – much less protests.

Jean Monnet – deviser of the mechanism – certainly knew what he was doing.

COMMENT THREAD

FISH+-+Cod+enda[i-FISH+-+Cod+enda]Right on cue, following the report that the EU is planning to "reform" the CFP, The Scotsman reveals that half of Scots cod catches are being thrown back into the sea

Described by fishermen's leaders as "a monumental moral disaster", this is a direct and inescapable consequence of the EU’s idea of fisheries management which in this case has led to a "staggering total" of 12,000 metric tons of marketable cod, with a potential value of £25 million, being discarded.

These data come from marine scientists at the government's Fisheries Research Service in Aberdeen. They show that, from a survey, carried out between January and June, 40 percent of landings of cod by weight are having to be discarded to prevent the fleet breaching the EU's quota restrictions.

At least 90 per cent of the catches are above the minimum marketable landing size, yet the above quota fish are being thrown back dead.

Unfortunately, it does not seem as if the fishermen have any better idea of how to deal with this issue than the EU. At a meeting involving industry representatives, scientists, environmentalists and policy-makers in Edinburgh next Thursday, the Scottish White Fish Producers' Association (SWFPA) will making its own pitch.

It will suggest that the Scottish fleet is given an increase in next year's cod quota in return for cuts in the number of days they spend at sea and fishing ground closures.

What it cannot suggest, however, is that the quota system is abandoned altogether – that being the bedrock of the CFP management system and thus beyond change – together with a total ban on "discards".

As we have been pointing out, most recently here, these measures together with the adoption of selective fishing techniques and a regime of "days at sea" controls on fishing effort, allocated by class of boat, would go a long way towards removing the obscenity of this waste.

However, as always, the EU is unable to respond, necessarily maintaining the core of a flawed system as the only such system which can be administered by a remote, supra-national authority controlling a multinational fleet.

At its heart, therefore, the CFP is irredeemably flawed because the EU is irredeemably flawed, which is why we will continue to see headlines of the type offered by The Scotsman and nothing at all will be done about then, other than continue cutting the sizes of the fleets as fish stocks contract as a result of the poor management.

The tragedy is that this mad-made and totally avoidable disaster exists only because UK politicians have neither the guts nor resolve to do anything about it. It is one of the prices we pay for continued membership of the EU – although paid by the fishermen and us, the fish buyers, rather than the loathesome politicians who so carelessly allow a valuable national resource to be destroyed.

COMMENT THREAD

link[i-link]From the organisation that wants to sell you snake oil carbon credits (or, at least, make you pay through the nose for them) comes the stunning news that it plans to carry out a "full review" of its flagship Common Fisheries Policy, with the intention of proposing "major reform" by 2012.

Reform is required, says fisheries commissioner Borg, because "in its current form, the CFP does not encourage responsible behaviour by either fishermen or politicians." He adds: "The management tools we use reward narrow-minded, short-term decision-making, which has now undermined the sustainability of our fisheries."

Needless to say, the commissioners recipe for reform is just as narrow minded as the decision-making he is bitching about. Having presided over a system that insists on fishermen throwing back into the sea dead something like sixty percent of the fish they catch, he complains that that 88 percent of the bloc's fish stocks are overexploited and then attributes the problem to the fishing fleet being capable of catching "two to three times" the maximum sustainable yield.

Of course, if fishermen did not have to throw so many fish back, the fish stocks would be considerably healthier than they are now. And if fishing effort was managed day-by-day with temporary and seasonal closures implemented on the basis of real time information from fisherman, rather than one-year-old data from survey vessels test-fishing in statistically-assigned grids, stocks would be even healthier – capable of sustaining a fleet several times larger than it is now.

As it is, the fishing policy is neither science-based nor attuned to fisheries management. It is a political instrument designed to reconcile the competing demands for a resource to which all EU nations have access and for which no one bears any responsibility.

The policy, therefore, is fundamentally flawed and, as long as it is managed by the EU, will remain so. No amount of trimming round the edges, or "reform" will improve it. Hence the ultimate policy is, and always will be, to preside over the totally unnecessary decline in fish stocks then, tardily, to impose increasingly draconian measures to limit catches and finally to cut the size of the fleet.

Nothing changes and nothing will change. The CFP, in EU terms, is and always will be the mother of all failures (unless you count the CAP). And, being the EU, you can be assured it will have plenty of progeny to keep it company in its old age.

COMMENT THREAD

Booker+fishermen[i-Booker+fishermen]The lead story in the Booker column yesterday is so unpleasant that it makes you wonder whether it could really have happened in Britain.

The story speaks for itself but, in brief, three Thames Estuary fishermen - forced to land over-quota fish in order to make a living, through arbitrary refusal of the officials to release unused quota - have been prosecuted for their "crimes".

But, not content with swingeing fines and costs, the officials had sought – and obtained from a compliant judge - confiscation of their assets under the Proceeds of Crime Act, to a total of £213,461. Unless this sum is paid within months the fishermen face two years in prison.

That summary though does not begin to do justice to the true horror of what has happened but, speaking personally, I so hate this type of story that I find difficulty writing about it – hence my leaving it so late.

This is not from any squeamishness. The reluctance stems from the feeling of impotent rage it invokes in me, a sense of frustration combined with a black hatred that comes from the very depths of my soul, for the malign injustice of a policy – and its execution – that deprives good men of a living and treats them so foully.

What is doubly frustrating is that a story that should invoke howls of outrage is consigned to the neglected ghetto of the Booker column and noted only by two bloggers – that I am aware of - Tony Sharp and Tim Worstall.

Although an intensely political issue – arising from policy created over several decades which has conspired to turn commercial fishing into a criminal occupation – it has been divorced from the politicians who allowed it to happen.

Worse still, the current generation of politicians are silent and thus, without comment from them, the episode lacks that essential political controversy from which the political "squawkosphere" takes its lead. It too, therefore, is silent, preferring to comment on the soap opera and drama queens rather than the lives of real people destroyed by malevolent officials.

Thus, even now, Booker's story in the print edition is history and the stories of those of us who have commented on it will shortly be consigned to our archives, picked over occasionally when they show up on a Google search but otherwise ignored.

But, while the story might fade, the black hatred does not. One fantasises about running amok with a Kalashnikov in the offices of these dank, foul officials but it remains fantasy. More to the point, it would be a waste of time. Those slaughtered would so easily be replaced and the injustice would go on unchecked.

Sooner or later, though, the dam will break. It always does – history tells us that. It may not happen in my lifetime but, when it does, it will be very messy, very nasty and a lot of innocent people will get hurt. But it will happen and it will do so because a lot of people did nothing about the things of which Booker reports so lucidly.

COMMENT THREAD

Barroso+005757[i-Barroso+005757]If it was looked at through the same lens used for national politics, the media would be all over it – but since it is "Europe" it goes virtually without comment.

This is the commission proposal at the beginning of this month to divert €1 billion of the expected surplus from next year's CAP fund to provide food aid for Africa.

Two weeks to the day, however, a group of eight member states are telling the commission to think again, questioning the legality of the scheme.

The refusniks are Austria, Britain, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Malta, the Netherlands and Sweden, all bar the Czechs being net contributors to the EU budget.

Furthermore, the EU parliament is querying the scheme, its budget spokesman Cezary Lewanowicz saying: "We have had enough of political declarations about spending funds when no solid legal basis is provided at the same time."

Although the commission was due to approve the scheme today, it is now having to reconsider it, as well as another plan for chuck another €600 million into the fishing industry to compensate it for increased diesel costs.

The member states are also questioning the legality of this payment and, rather than giving the commission an easy time of it, are calling for a cut of about €1.7 billion from the €116.7 billion 2009 proposed budget.

Perhaps it was rather unwise of the commission to show its hand so soon, effectively giving the member states an easy opening to claw back some of the contributions they make to the budget, but this last-minute refusal must represent something of an embarrassment for el presidente Barroso.

And that embarrassment could turn to humiliation if his flamboyant largesse is finally rejected by the member states – not that many people will be aware of it, given the reluctance of the media to tell it like it is. But you can imagine the fun the hacks would be having if Gordon Brown had been forced to make a similar climb-down.

COMMENT THREAD

China+algae[i-China+algae]The BBC all but ignored the rioting in China’s Guizhou Province earlier this month – giving airtime instead to efforts to clear up the algal bloom in the sea off Qingdao – home of the water events for this year's Olympics.

Even then, it treated the issue on a superficial level, dealing with just the clear-up efforts without drawing any deeper inferences from the sudden appearance of the alga – an estimated 620,000 tons having been removed by yesterday.

Not so Peter Navarro in today's Asia Times, who offers a thoughtful comment piece headed, "China's pollution Olympics", in which he discusses the underlying causes of this menance.

Perspicaciously, he tells us, "Sometimes it's the little stories that tell us the most." Indeed it is. Very often, small clues carry huge meaning and can give an insight into a situation that all the blaring headlines fail to reveal.

The algal bloom, Navarro tells us, is "far from atypical in the world's most polluted nation." Today, he writes, fully 70 percent of China's seven major rivers are severely polluted, 80 percent of its rivers fail to meet standards for fishing, and 90 percent of the country's cities suffer from some degree of water pollution.

As a result, over 700 million Chinese drink foetid water of a quality well below World Health Organization standards. Meanwhile, liver and stomach cancers related to water pollution are among the leading causes of death in the countryside, while 21 cities along the Yellow River are characterised by the highest measurable levels of pollution.

As to the algal bloom in Qingdao, this is being caused in large part by equally massive misuse of fertiliser. As the world's largest fertiliser user, China consumes more than 50 million tons annually. Far too often, untrained peasants apply far too much fertiliser to their meagre plots in the false hopes of boosting yields. The result has been a new kind of "flooding" problem, that of excess fertiliser runoff flooding into rivers and streams.

Relentlessly, Navarro retails the extent of this problem. One case he describes is the algal blooms that keep hitting China's third-largest lake, Lake Tai. Famous for its classic beauty, the lake is more than a major tourist attraction. It also supplies water to 30 million people. Cleaning up of this lake alone is going to cost more than US$14 billion while panic buying of bottled water during Lake Tai's repeated algal blooms have driven the price of bottled water as high as $1.50 per litre.

Furthermore, China's algal blooms are hardly restricted to its rivers and lakes. China's coastal waters are also suffering mightily from a growing epidemic of "red tides" - an oceangoing version of eutrophication. The problem is particularly acute in the relatively shallow Bohai and Yellow Seas off northern China where Qingdao is located and where there is minimal tidal exchange.

These red tides are rapidly destroying fish stocks and devastating marine life for both the country and its neighbours while China has seen an astonishing 40-fold increase in the incidence of red tides in just the past few years.

And so to the "broader picture" from this little story. We have a "big country choking to death on a wide variety of pollutants." What is emerging is one of the most far-reaching and irresponsible environmental disasters the world has ever seen.

Obviously, in a single piece, there are limits to what Navarro can deal with so, inevitably, he is not able to address the economic issues. But poor water quality in particular has a massive effect, not least on agriculture. The burden of pollution is steadily excluding huge volumes of water which are desperately needed in country which is not over-blessed with this resource.

This is already having a significant effect on production and is one of the factors which is bringing China's economic expansion to a grinding halt.

The bizarre thing about this is that these problems are being caused by real pollution, which is having an immediate and serious impact. Yet, as Booker reports, the G8 emphasis is on that entirely fictitious "pollution", namely "carbon" or, more accurately, carbon dioxide.

One of the great distortions of the global warmists is turning a vital chemical like carbon dioxide into "pollution". But, in so doing, they divert attention from real, and seriously harmful threats, which will have repercussions far beyond the regions they affect. A hungry, impoverished and unstable China is protentially a far more serious problem then any imagined harm from "global warming", especially as the last eleven years have seen gradual cooling.

In the final analysis, therefore, the harm done by the warmists will not only be measured in terms of the direct damage they have done. In diverting attention and resources from real problems, there are massive opportunity costs – the costs of things not done while our politicians fritter away our wealth on a miasma.

COMMENT THREAD

Booker+fish[i-Booker+fish]As with farmers, we are so often told that the fishing industry is in "crisis" that that very fact becomes part of the political wallpaper – such a constant and familiar state that we no longer take any notice of it.

Thus when Booker tells us today that "Fishermen face 'worst ever crisis'" it becomes just another part of the background, ironically to become tomorrow's fish and chip wrapping paper – if EU food packaging rules still allow such use.

The fact is, though, that fishermen are facing their worst ever crisis and, while they have long suffered from the depredations of the CFP – seasoned in part with their own stupidity and venality – the proximate cause of their distress is our own government.

In the context of an EU single market, where British fishermen exploit the same seas and compete with their foreign "brethren", we have a situation where the EU commission permits member states to subsidise their fleets – an option taken up by all our main competitors with the egregious exception of the United Kingdom.

It was for that reason that a small, disconsolate rump of the industry presented itself last Tuesday at the headquarters of DEFRA, in Smith Square, London, to present fishing minister Jonathan Shaw with a message well known to him, to which he and this government are entirely indifferent.

The statistics, in themselves, are stark. Numbers of active commercial fishermen are down by 40 percent over the last 14 years and, by the end of this year, thousands more of our surviving 12,000 will be out of business. Yet, in 1973 – before we joined the Common Market - Britain had the largest fishing fleet in Europe.

Booker illustrates the level of the current crisis with an account of visitors in recent weeks who have been to many of our fishing ports, from Fraserburgh in Scotland to Newlyn in Cornwall. They have been shocked to see so many boats tied up, because their owners can no longer afford to put to sea, "hit by the double whammy of soaring fuel prices, up 320 per cent in five years, and draconian new Brussels quota rules, which mean the amount of fish they can land is below the point where it is economical to fish at all."

But, although the crisis created by the exploding price of diesel, which accounts for 60 percent of a fishing boat's costs, is one affecting all Europe's fishing industries – a bad situation is made even worse by this government's refusal to match the subsidies paid to their competitors.

Under EU rules, Spain is allowed to give £98 million to its fishermen, to enable them "to stay competitive". France, which can give £106 million and has every intention of doing so. But although Britain is permitted by Brussels to give £78 million, Mr Shaw made it clear to the fishermen on Tuesday that they cannot expect a penny. The Government, he told them, "does not have the financial resources available".

The real subtext of Mr Shaw's refusal, writes Booker, was spelled out by Commissioner Borg in Brussels, when he said that the future for "European fisheries" lay not in "false solutions" but in "restructuring, to create a smaller, more fuel-efficient fleet".

In other words, if thousands more British fishermen go to the wall, that must be part of the EU's long-term solution. Their French and Spanish competitors will be grateful that their governments do not agree with the immovable Mr Shaw. That is why, by the end of the year, a great many more of them will have survived than now seems likely in the country which, until it gave its fishing waters away to Brussels.

Therein lies an example of the nightmare we have to face. It is not so much Brussels we have to deal with as the combined effect of both Brussels and out own government – the combination proving lethal to our economic survival. And, while we can all sympathise with the plight of the fishermen, that combination is beyond the scope of the political system, as established, to redress.

Thus, we shrug our shoulders and, metaphorically, walk away. It is not that we don't care - we do. But there is nothing we can do, so we go away and indulge in political theatre. In such small ways is the loss of our democracy measured, and in such small ways do we lose the heart of our nation.

COMMENT THREAD

FISH+-+Amity+II+rear[i-FISH+-+Amity+II+rear]A jolly little spat is developing between the Scottish "government" and Whitehall over control of Scottish fish stocks.

Scottish National party's (SNP) fisheries minister, Richard Lochhead, has introduced a moratorium on the sale of quotas held by Scottish trawlers while he carries out a review of fishing licences and quota controls. The outcome could be measures which greatly restrict the rights of English vessels to fish in Scottish waters.

According to The Guardian, this has led to accusations from Whitehall that Scottish nationalist ministers are accused of illegally trying to seize control of fish stocks.

Hilariously – if that is the way it takes you - Barries Deas, the chief executive of the York-based National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations, is calling in aid his arch enemy, the EU commission.

"This move is provocative, highly irresponsible and probably illegal," he says. "There is no such thing as Scottish or English quota. There is UK quota. If the Scottish executive has any doubts over this, a brief telephone call to the European commission should allay any doubts."

The UK's fisheries minister, Jonathan Shaw, has formally warned the Scottish executive he believes the moratorium is illegal and had "significant concerns" that the quota reforms breached its powers under devolution, which gives Scottish ministers limited rights to decide their own fisheries policy.

Lochhead is unrepentant. He maintains that his "reforms" are intended to protect a vital industry under intense pressure from cuts in quotas, competition and soaring fuel costs. He wants to overhaul the current quota rules to favour Scottish-based skippers and fleets, and implies he wants to permanently restrict access to non-Scottish trawlers.

Despite their being part of UK waters, Lochhead claims that the fishery is a "national asset" for Scotland, declaring that, "It is vital that we take steps to safeguard the historic rights for future generations."

That much is wishful thinking as the EU dictates that fisheries are a "common resource", allowing the commission and the 27 member states to decide which nations' fleets can exploit the waters, the amount of fish they can catch and the conditions under which they can be caught.

Thus, Lochhead says that the Scottish government is also trying to withdraw from the EU common fisheries policy. Ministers in London said that this was impossible, since it is the UK government which was the member state, not Scotland.

Jim Murphy, the Foreign Office minister for Europe, said leaving the common fisheries policy contradicted the SNP's claims that an independent Scotland would be a full member of the EU. "It's time they were honest with the people of Scotland - their policies just don't add up," he said.

Murphy may have a point. The SNP has always sought an “independent Scotland within the European Union – a contradiction of terms is ever there was one. In wanting to break away from the CFP, this party of independence is simply showing that it has yet to grasp the realities of what is meant by membership of the EU.

COMMENT THREAD