I don’t think you can align fishing with market access as isn’t the goal a ‘free’ market hence your assertion isn’t correct.
I’m not disagreeing with the essence of your point, surely agreeing with it to a large extent, however an ocean is an ocean and it’s just more difficult for me to grasp the concept of ownership. Still I think the EU should accept paying for access, well at least those that are interested/concerned. Still I feel the issue of ‘quotas’ would still raise it’s ugly but very necessary head. What are the real sticking points over this anyway?
According to the Telegraph, the EU have introduced a demand for 10 years of unfettered access to Britain’s fishing waters as the price of a deal.
If this is true, that this condition has been introduced at the 11th hour, it is hardly surprising that negotiations are on the brink of collapse. It is hardly reasonable to make such a demand (probably at the behest of the French) at this late stage in negotiations.
Perhaps the UK should respond in kind, with a similar demand for our service industry to have 10 years unfettered access to their financial markets.
No thats entirely wrong pal; once the fish have been fished, the comparison with market exchange is fair, but not at the point of taking. The comparative would be the UK being able to harvest French grapes, rather than buy wine at a reduced import cost.
There is a clear differentiation at law between a resource and a market; the resource is at a level that precedes and feeds the market. It is a dumbfounded position that the EU are taking; they are in effect ransoming the UK and seeking an exchange that is at least one degree removed.
Also this goes back as far as the 80s fishing dispute when the EU once again, under its abstract pillars, sought to include UK waters as being eligible for fishing by Spanish trawlers. It is entirely correct, the UK never entered the Union with such in mind. Suppose it was always in the post.
Surely we are talking about the resource as in fishing it. You’ll have to get a bit more basic I think, for me.
Good luck with harvesting grapes in France, hope you can transform them ‘sur place’.
Btw I haven’t disagreed with the absurdity of the EU wanting ‘access’ in the way they or it is being portrayed.
As I have stated I have a problem over the ocean, can I buy some ocean?
To harvest French grapes you’d need to own the land they are on, no?
Yeah well you’re right but its another issue, albeit an accepted international norm that States own/control 12 miles outwards from their shores; its partly from the Norwegian Continental Shelf case and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. At some point everything is contingent, and I know we both know that, but once a norm is in circulation that will do for those in power. The whole world ‘mostly’ obeys the UN convention/Norwegian case as an international norm.
Thus because the UK is an island, it has shit loads more sea to claim to control. A huge perimeter 12 miles right around the coastline.
I would expect it is a proposal to try to get round an existing blockage in negotiations rather than simply a ‘new demand’ given much of the fishing quota is already owned by non UK parties.
The only way that it may have been introduced at the 11th hour is the specific term of 10 years. Over a year ago, the fundamental problem was there, and the British proposal of year-to-year allocations was rejected by the EU, as was the EU demand for 25 year allocations, with quotas adjustable for ecological reasons.
I don’t think any other sector has been discussed with term limits to access, so any access the British financial sector may get would already be indefinite, not bounded at 10 years.
The government’s Internal Market Bill was expected to return to the House of Commons on Monday.
And the long-awaited Finance Bill, scheduled to be tabled on Tuesday. Both could contain clauses contradicting the Protocol on Northern Ireland, signed with the EU last year as part of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement.
The government insists the clauses are necessary, as a safety net, to ensure the smooth circulation of goods within the United Kingdom, in case of a no deal situation with the EU.
But the European Parliament has warned it will veto any deal with the UK, if Downing Street includes the clauses. Breaking the treaty is unacceptable, says the EU. Safety net or not.
That seems to be one of the huge risks here. Ireland is the UK’s main advocate inside the tent right now, that would likely change radically if the Protocol on Northern Ireland is chucked out.
Fuck me, there is nothing this government will not twist for political gain. A few weeks ago Hancock did a stirling job holding back the tears at the dispatch box. Talking about how Covid killed a member of his family.
The Telegraph of all places has revealed Matt Hancock’s ‘step-grandfather’ who died of Covid-19 was his step-father’s ex-wife’s second husband.
