Last modified on Sat 1 May 2021 08.09 EDT
The failure of the UK government to seal a fishing quota deal with Norway â despite heralding a âhistoricâ Brexit agreement with the country last year â is a disaster that will have serious consequences, say fishery leaders.
âThis is actually a loss of real fishing opportunities,â said Barrie Deas, the chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermanâs Organisations, âand in that sense weâve gone backwardsâ.
The North Atlantic is key to UK fishing interests because it provides a large stock of cod and haddock for the nationâs fish and chip shops.
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Jan. 21, 2021 10:28 GMT
With many in the sector still reeling from an abrupt U-turn from the UK government on fisheries access at the tail-end of 2020, sector chiefs have expressed pessimism on the likelihood of taking full control of the UK s waters at the end of the five-and-a-half-year adjustment period in 2026.
Speaking at the Westminster Food & Nutrition seminar, Barrie Deas, CEO of the National Federation of Fisherman s Organisations, expressed the question of what happens beyond 2026 as a moot point . There are optimists that say that at that point, access and quota shares will be subject to annual negotiations. And in that sense, the UK can utilize its leverage on access to secure better quota shares, Deas told listeners [.]
Quick Read By Shafi Musaddique Correspondent
After five years of intense debate, Britain is now finally, fully, out of the European Union. But its departure, when it happened on Jan. 1
st
, turned out to be something of an anticlimax.
That’s because the COVID-19 pandemic, and the government’s draconian lockdown response, have knocked everything else off the front pages and out of peoples’ minds. And with the implications of London’s new trade deal with the EU only starting to emerge, it is hard for most voters to judge it yet.
Why We Wrote This
Britain’s most momentous political move for generations took effect this month, but nobody paid much attention. Years of exhausting debate about Brexit, and the COVID-19 crisis, sapped the nation’s interest.