Power over fishing needs to be given to the Scottish Government to prevent Scottish interests in this industry being negotiated away any further says Angus Brendan MacNeil MP, SNP Fisheries spokesperson at Westminster.

Fishermen were promised that they would regain full control over the country’s fishing waters on Brexit day, 29 March 2019. Instead, the UK will merely be “consulted” on fish quotas during the interim period, while remaining in the CFP.

Last week, Mr MacNeil called on the Secretary of State for DEFRA, Michael Gove MP to clarify what implications Brexit will have on the Scottish fishing industry and to urge that Westminster resists a power grab of Scottish fisheries.

Commenting Angus MacNeil MP said:

“Fisheries must be handed to the Scottish Government and not power grabbed by Westminster, as Westminster is likely to negotiate Scotland’s fisheries away during the Brexit negotiations.

“Brexit is going to be damaging given that control over fisheries was one bit of hope in a very gloomy landscape. Now we see the Tories selling out the fishing industry.

“This is a massive betrayal to fishermen who were promised by the Tory Government they would regain control again – what we are seeing here is not regaining control but losing control.

“Astonishingly, a Tory-leaning journalist has stated “If the UK must ‘sell out’ any industry then fishing is a good industry to choose… it’s only 12,000 jobs in Scotland.”

“The Tories have been leading fishermen up the garden path – we simply cannot trust the Tories to do what is best for Scotland’s fishing industry.  This is the first betrayal by the Tory MPs who are only now after the event telling the Prime Minister how important fisheries are, just what have they been doing for the past year?”

ENDS