Thread by @camcamdamn

Brexiters are lying when they claim the EU has deprived them of fishing rights. What actually happened? British fishermen sold their fishing quotas to other EU countries to make quick millions.

https://twitter.com/atlanticmigrant/status/1224653622325194753

Each country is free to share out its fishing national quota, but Britain let fishers sell their quotas abroad. The Dutch ship Cornelis Vrolijk owns 23% of the entire UK quota - which was willingly sold to them by British fishermen, eager for the chance to make a quick buck.

What Brexiters won't say is that 5 UK families own a third of the UK's entire fishing quota (29%):
Lunar (Alexander Buchan + family)
Interfish (Jan Colam + family)
Klondyke (Robert Tait + family)
Andrew Marr International (Andrew Marr + family)
JW Holdings (Sir Ian Wood + family)

A further 49% is held by Dutch, Spanish and Icelandic interests who were SOLD English vessels and quota.
They were only permitted to buy the quota because of UK law.
EU law stipulates that countries can share their quota; UK law allowed UK fishermen to sell theirs. And they did.

Successive governments mismanaged fishing rights, allowing quota to be consolidated on a handful of supertrawlers while smaller-scale fishermen were gradually starved of access.
Smaller inshore vessels (making up 77%) have less than 4% of the quota.
Again - not the EU's fault.

And Nigel Farage can fuck off.

The British public are encouraged to believe that it was the EU that first allowed foreign boats to fish in British waters (the exclusive economic zone). It wasn’t.
Also, the Royal Navy has only 12 protection boats covering a sea area three times the size of the UK. Good luck.

Overall, the UK imports 70% of the fish we eat and exports 80% of what we catch. The UK already has most of the quotas for haddock and generous quotas for cod (which is anyway growing scarce once again). The EU buys most of the fish we don't eat; horse mackerel, sprats etc.