South West MEP Julie Girling today welcomed a trade-press report that leaving the EU would not automatically make life better for British fishermen and seafood companies.
She spoke out after the industry publication Undercurrent reported that “Brexit” would not necessarily free up UK fishing quotas or mean autonomy for the British fleet, according to the Marine Conservation Society.
Instead quotas would still need to be negotiated between the UK, the EU and any other member state involved, including Norway or Iceland, the MSC said.
Mrs Girling, Conservative MEP for the South West and Gibraltar, said: “I know that many blame the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy for all the industry’s ills and historically they may have a point.
“But the CFP has been comprehensively reformed in recent years. While still not perfect, it is considerably better than it was.
“And people in the industry might well consider it far better than the uncertainty, antagonism and wasted energy that would be involved in renegotiating from scratch our place in the fishing seascape.
“This report explodes the myth that leaving the EU would somehow solve all fishing’s problems at a stroke and give the industry overnight autonomy.”
