BRISTOL, England – As an island and a former maritime nation, fishing communities in the UK have a huge impact on the country’s identity.
So it should come as no surprise that their fate hovered over the Brexit negotiations, with politicians promising fishermen that they would be big winners after the UK left the European Union.
But now, many members of the fishing community say they are disappointed in the government. Instead of boosting the industry, they say, the new trade agreement does not live up to legislators’ Brexit promises, choked off its business with bureaucracy and let the struggling industry languish further.
“The deal was absolutely shameful and shameful – that’s the only way to describe it,” said David Pessell, managing director of Plymouth Trawler Agents, a fish auction company in southwest England. “They broke their word on all the charges in force.
Pessell, who voted to leave the EU in 2016, is far from alone in his belief that Brexit’s announced rewards for the fishing industry have largely failed to materialize. Few in the seafood sector are happy with how things are going, with the details and ramifications of the trade agreement between the UK and the EU confirming fears and dispelling hopes across the industry.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. After all, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has made the post-Brexit fate of the country’s fishermen a central point of his message.
“For the first time since 1973, we will be an independent coastal state with full control of our waters,” Johnson said in a Dec. 24 speech announcing the new trade agreement, just days before the country concluded its economic separation from the EU on 31 December. December.
Ocean control would probably never be a major economic concern for the UK – after all, the fishing industry contributed less than 1 percent to the country’s gross domestic product in 2019. But the symbolic importance of the industry meant that in the eleventh negotiations hourly commercials, the issue has become a critical point.
“He should have pushed harder, he promised, he really promised that we would get our coastal waters back,” said Phil Trebilcock, a fisherman in the coastal town of Newquay, southwest of Johnson. “‘Ah, yes, we will make it, we will make it’, and in the end they didn’t make it,” he said, imitating members of the British government.
Trebilcock, 67, was among the fishermen who spoke to NBC News in the summer of 2017 about what Brexit could mean for the industry. At the time, he and others said they hoped that breaking free of Brussels would allow the UK to get rid of the EU’s complex quota system, which determines the amount of fish its ships can fish, and put an end to foreign boats chasing fish. in your waters.
Today, he is disappointed that the agreement allows some foreign boats to have continuous access to the country’s coastal waters for at least the next five and a half years, and says that a gradual increase in the amount of seafood that British fishermen can fish in the waters of the UK over the same period does not go far enough. After that, reciprocal access to territorial waters and new quotas will have to be negotiated.
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While many of the fishermen who spoke to NBC News in 2017 applauded Brexit, a good number of those who processed and exported fish expressed concern about the impending divorce. Some of his fears have now materialized, as the consequences of the new trade agreement are already being felt.
Seafood exporters complain that they are incurring new costs due to the extensive paperwork now needed to deliver products to the continent, a major concern, since the United Kingdom exports most of the fish it catches.
Some also say that border checks and customs declarations have caused substantial delays for trucks transporting perishable goods abroad, at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic had already reduced market prices and demand.
“Since we left Europe, it has been an absolute nightmare,” said Ian Perkes, a fish exporter from Brixham, a fishing town in the English county of Devon.
Perkes, who voted to leave the EU, said he lost thousands of pounds in sales due to the Brexit bureaucracy, as he initially failed to export to the continent because he did not have the correct paperwork.
Although logistical problems have started to subside, he says he still fears that his business will not be able to survive if the rising cost of the routine paperwork needed to export to the EU persists.
“If I had known that this would be the result, I obviously would not have voted to leave,” he said.
On January 18, seafood companies staged a protest in London, taking delivery trucks from places as far away as Scotland, past the houses of Parliament, with signs declaring “Brexit carnage” and “Incompetent government destroying the fruit industry from the sea! “
Johnson said the problems were “initial problems” and promised a £ 23m compensation fund for companies that “through no fault of their own” experienced bureaucratic delays and difficulties in delivering their goods.
But Perkes said that any compensation would not be enough, as it would not cover the ongoing costs that exporters face because of Brexit.
“Everything ended up in a mess,” he said. “We are very, very disappointed.”