UK sends navy vessels to Jersey amid post-Brexit fishing row with France Daniel Boffey and Lisa O Carroll
Boris Johnson has dispatched two Royal Navy patrol boats to protect Jersey from a feared naval blockade by French fishing vessels, in an escalation of a dispute over post-Brexit access to waters around the Channel island.
The move followed talks on Wednesday evening between the prime minister and the chief minister of the British crown dependency, John Le Fondré, who had warned Downing Street of imminent movements by French fishing boats to cut off the island’s main port.
Jersey’s government had already been reeling from comments on Tuesday from France’s minister for maritime affairs, Annick Girardin, who had warned that the island’s electricity supply could be turned off in retaliation over a lack of access for the French fishing fleet to its waters.
UK sends navy vessels to Jersey amid post-Brexit fishing row with France Daniel Boffey and Lisa O Carroll
Boris Johnson has dispatched two Royal Navy patrol boats to protect Jersey from a feared naval blockade by French fishing vessels, in an escalation of a dispute over post-Brexit access to waters around the Channel island.
The move followed talks on Wednesday evening between the prime minister and the chief minister of the British crown dependency, John Le Fondré, who had warned Downing Street of imminent movements by French fishing boats to cut off the island’s main port.
Jersey’s government had already been reeling from comments on Tuesday from France’s minister for maritime affairs, Annick Girardin, who had warned that the island’s electricity supply could be turned off in retaliation over a lack of access for the French fishing fleet to its waters.
A stable democracy doesn’t threaten to cut off its neighbour’s energy supplies. That is the sort of behaviour we associate with rogue states.
Putin’s Russia, for example, sometimes resorts to ‘gas diplomacy’ to browbeat Ukraine and other nearby states. An energy blockade is calculatedly bellicose if not exactly an act of war, then certainly a declaration of hostile intent.
Incredibly, such a threat is now being made by the French government against Jersey, a British Crown dependency 14 miles from the Normandy coast, in a row over fishing licences.
In a dramatic development last night, as Boris Johnson pledged his ‘unwavering support’ for the island, it was announced that two Royal Navy patrol vessels will be sent to monitor this planned French blockade of Jersey’s main port.
HELD TO RANSOM
France threatens to cut off Jersey’s electricity in furious row over access to fishing waters after Brexit
Sarah Grealish
Updated: 13:44 ET, May 4 2021
FRANCE is threatening to cut off Jersey’s electricity supply in a row over access to fishing waters.
It comes as a new post-Brexit law came into place on the Island on Friday, meaning french boats fishing off Jersey now need a special license from the Jersey government.
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French fishermen wishing to fish in Jersey must apply for a new licenseCredit: AFP
Now angry trawlermen and government officials want to cut a cable which runs underwater from Northern France to Jersey in response.