A new statement from the New Economics Foundation (NEF) argues that the EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is helping UK fisheries.
This comes following comments from UKIP leader Nigel Farage who led a pro-Brexit flotilla of fishing boats up the Thames in protest against the CFP.
Griffin Carpenter, economic modeller at NEF, said: “Nigel Farage’s claim that leaving the EU would be good news for UK fishing is wrong. Fish don’t respect country boarders, so shared management of them is essential.”
“The evidence is overwhelmingly clear that the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy is working. While fish stocks were declining before EU management, many fish stocks are now growing, meaning more fish, more profits and more employment opportunities for our fishing industry.”
A NEF briefing stated that fishing limits were essential and sustainable fishing brings more jobs, profit and fish. It argued that EU quotas are working and said that fish stocks for which the EU has set limits, like North Sea cod, are now recovering to healthy levels. Those without quotas are still in danger.
Alongside this, the most significant issue for small ports, who only have a fraction of the vessels and fishers they once had, is how the quota set by the EU is allocated between different fishing fleets. This is a national decision, not one taken by the EU.
Importantly, NEF says that the UK can influence policy from inside the EU, this includes the UK Fish Fight campaign, a ban on throwing dead, unwanted fish back into the sea, or ‘discarding’, which is now being phased in across all EU waters.
Mr Carpenter concluded: “Fishing for Leave argues that we’d be better off leaving the EU and negotiating from the outside, but time and time again we’ve seen negotiations with non-member states like Iceland and Norway break down and lead to unsustainable quotas or no quotas at all. We can and have changed policies from inside the EU.”
