Sir Keir Starmer must not “sell out” or “capitulate” to the EU during a UK-EU summit on Monday, MPs and fishermen have warned. Shadow Environment Secretary Victoria Atkins visited the Isle of Wight ahead of the crunch talks on Monday, where fishermen told her the industry faces extinction without drastic support.
The senior Tory said: “We have a really big set of negotiations coming up which will involve fishing but also other aspects of our relationship with the EU. We know that the Prime Minister has been discussing what he’s describing as an ‘EU reset’. What we want to ensure as Conservatives is that he gets it right and that means not backsliding on the commitments we made when these were first negotiated five years ago, but also very much improving the deal for our fishermen across the United Kingdom.
“We’re hearing very worrying things and speculation in the papers that Labour is going to capitulate to the EU and give away our fishing rights. We as Conservatives will stand firm against that.”
Joe Robertson MP warned his constituents on the isle off the south coast of England fear Sir Keir will “end up with a worse deal”.
France is said to be pushing for continued access for its trawlers to UK waters, rather than annual talks.
Fishing terms under the current Brexit deal are due to expire in 2026, meaning fresh negotiations were always on the cards.
Mr Robertson said: “The worry is, certainly for fishing, we’re going to end up with a worse deal and the Prime Minister’s going to be selling them short. That’s why I’m really concerned and want to put pressure on the Prime Minister to not sell out.”
Britain and the bloc will discuss closer trade alignment when they meet, after the Government said it wanted to strengthen ties with the EU.
Sir Keir and EU leaders have said they want to see closer defence and security co-operation, and both sides have shown an interest in a youth mobility scheme and aligned farming standards.
Ed Blake, whose family has fished on the Isle of Wight since the 1830s, called the Brexit deal “disappointing” and “the death of us as an industry”.
He told how he and his dad Geoff, 60, are the last full-time fishing boat on the Isle – a dramatic decline from the up to 70 vessels 30 years ago.
The skipper said: “As a fishing industry on the whole, we campaigned hard to leave the EU. We’d been held ransom for years since the 70s when we first entered the Common Fisheries Policy.
“We were desperate to get out of [the EU], draw the halfway line across the Channel and basically tell them to ‘get out our waters’. Since then, we’ve been pretty much sold out.”
Under the UK-EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement, the UK and EU have rights of access for fishing in specific parts of each other’s waters between six and 12 nautical miles from the coast, under certain conditions.
Mr Blake said: “We’re not allowed 12 miles off their coast but they come up to our six. That’s one anomaly. They’re allowed to catch species we’re not allowed to catch. They’re using huge midwater supertrawlers. My boat is 3.5 tonnes. The boats they’ve got are 3,500 tonnes more. They are hoovering up the ocean. It’s decimated our mackerel fishing. We haven’t seen the benefits of what we thought we’d get.
“It’s disappointing. It’s literally been the death of us as an industry. On the island, we’re down to six full-time boats. Thirty years ago we had 60 or 70.”
Mr Blake, who is the youngest skipper “by a long way”, with his father the second youngest, warned “we’re on our knees as an industry”.
He added: “The only benefit that has come from it [Brexit] is that we are now not forced into selling fish to the EU.”
When asked about Sir Keir’s plans to strengthen ties with the EU, he said: “It’s a total sell-out. Almost all other countries are looking at bolstering their positions and we’re looking to weaken ourselves for the benefit of others and that’s just mental.”
“If something drastic doesn’t happen to help us, the industry will be gone. It’ll be extinct. Once you’ve lost that, you don’t get it back.”
When Ms Atkins was quizzed on the Brexit betrayal agreed by the Tories, she said: “First of all, we did what we said we were going to do, which was to leave the European Union, and I think everyone understands that was an enormous constitutional and legal change that we oversaw.
“We have never pretended that we got everything we wanted to get. That’s the nature of negotiation. But the one thing you can be clear of is that had we still been in government, we’d be going into these negotiations absolutely determined to improve upon what we already have to get a better deal for our fishing communities, to ensure that British farming continues to thrive.
She added: “We want to maintain our role as a proud, sovereign island state. Fishing is a key part of this. Farming is a key part of this. This Government has got to get serious about food security being part of national security.”