NIGEL FARAGE AND a number of other Brexiteers have thrown dead fish into the Thames today in protest against the EU maintaining control of British waters until the end of 2020.
The agreement was struck as part of the transition deal between the UK and the EU; some Brexiteers have expressed outrage at the delay and have called it an “abject betrayal” of Britain’s fishermen by British Prime Minister Theresa May.
Pro-Brexit campaign group Fishing for Leave said the deal is an “irrevocable surrender of Britain’s fishing for a second time”.
Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, who’s one of the leading figures in the Tory party and tipped as one of Theresa May’s possible successors, was reported to be leading the protest today – but yesterday he denied that he was taking part.
“I’m not throwing fish anywhere. I am not a fish-thrower,” he said on LBC radio.
“I think this has got slightly out of hand. There was a suggestion a fishing boat should go up the Thames in protest against the delay in leaving the Common Fisheries Policy, but I won’t be throwing fish anywhere.”
I have a nasty feeling that if I were to start throwing fish, they would be brought back in the wind and hit me in the face.
But former UKIP leader Nigel Farage is a fish-thrower, apparently.
One of the journalists who was aboard the boat, the Daily Telegraph’s Christopher Hope, said that the fish that were discarded were haddock, caught in the eastern English Channel.
The fish are being thrown in the sea because, according to campaigners, despite being caught in English waters it cannot be landed or sold in the UK because of EU rules, which is symbolic of a widespread problem they say.
Environment Minister Michael Gove announced last year that the UK would leave the London Fisheries Convention after Brexit, meaning EU and Irish boats wouldn’t be permitted to fish off the coasts of the UK.
It’s still unclear what exact implications this could have on Ireland’s fishing industry, but there are fears that it would lead to an influx of European boats fishing in Irish waters.
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