Common Fisheries Policy and Animals (amendment Etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Deidre Brock Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2019 General Committees

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

Here we are again, stuck in an endless groundhog day that stretches out before us with no end in sight. Alternatively, as this place revels in classical references, perhaps we are like Prometheus, tied to his rock and condemned to endless agonies—unless, of course, someone somewhere—the public, perhaps—takes the sensible decision that the whole bùrach is too much of a mess, and that it is time to finally put it out of its misery.

“Fishing after Brexit” sounds like the title of a novel about regret. Here we are, though, making sure that the common fisheries policy continues to rule over our fisheries after we have left the EU, and that access to markets for our fishing industries is restricted. We will still be stuck with the EU quotas, and ships and crews from other EU nations will have access to our waters. So much for the promises and predictions of the Leave campaign, and so much for the bravado and balderdash of the Government.

A previous Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, now lost to the anonymous corridors of some duchy, admitted repeatedly that leaving the EU would not include leaving the CFP, but that we would have better negotiating positions. It did not ring true then, and it certainly does not ring true now. The fishing fleets have been sold out once again by a Tory Government. It is economic catastrophe and utter betrayal, all wrapped up in one ideological miscalculation. Thirteen Scottish Tory MPs promised to vote down the withdrawal Bill if the negotiations continued. I look forward to their finally joining the rest of Scotland’s MPs in opposing Brexit.