EU rules on some types of shellfish leave UK fishers ‘devastated’.
By Adrian Ekins-Daukes
Fishers around the UK have been “devastated” by fresh problems with exporting their produce to the EU, after the government admitted that exports of live mussels, oysters, scallops and certain other shellfish would be subject to ongoing restrictions.
Those are all classified as “live bivalve molluscs” – a category which also includes cockles and clams. Under longstanding EU rules, catches of live bivalve molluscs from non-EU member states can only be imported without treatment if they come from waters deemed of the highest quality. Vessels from non-EU states also cannot land live bivalve molluscs in EU ports.
These rules have closed off many exports of live bivalve molluscs from the UK, since Brexit took full effect. The market for such shellfish is a small and specialist one, valued at less than £12m a year, but for the small number of fishers who operate in it, it is often their main livelihood.
Selfish Shellfish? Click on the image to Re-Boot Britain
The rules, and the disruption their enforcement has caused for fishers, cannot be termed a “teething problem” as other red tape has been, because they will apply permanently under Brexit unless the government can forge a fresh agreement with the EU to make exceptions for UK produce.
The fishing industry called on the government to do more to try to resolve the problem. Barrie Deas, chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, said: “This is devastating for those involved, and it cannot be left as a closed issue. Those of our members who produce mussels and cockles in particular are affected and are very seriously impacted – no exports to the EU as the UK is now a third country. This has to be sorted at government-to-government level and our understanding is that talks are under way, but so far without producing a satisfactory outcome.”
Alistair Sinclair, chair of the Scottish Creel Fishermen’s Federation, blamed the French president, Emmanuel Macron, as well as the UK government for the difficulties, and warned that they were a foretaste of future negotiations. “This is possibly a demonstration of the difficulties that lie ahead Throughout the whole run-up to Brexit, our voice was not considered by the Scottish government and indeed the Tory grandees.”
Fishers could try to comply with the regulations by taking on further processing of the molluscs, to gain the health certification necessary for exports, but this can be costly and time-consuming. Many had hoped that the Brexit agreement would allow for their exports to continue. The EU is the main market for many such specialist fishers.
Brexit was sold on the promise of fish and ships
A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “Live bivalve molluscs such as oysters, mussels, clams, cockles and scallops can continue to be exported to the EU if they’re harvested from class A waters or cleaned, or have cleared end product testing in the UK. We will continue to raise the issue of live bivalve molluscs not ready for human consumption with the EU, to ensure the trade can continue securely.”
The European commission confirmed that the requirements were not temporary, and were applicable to all such shellfish imported from the UK.
Most of the fisheries affected are in England and Wales. Exports of bivalve molluscs are worth less than £12m a year, of which clams make up more than half, with oysters and mussels worth about £2.7m each. Defra said it could not estimate how much of this market would be affected as some are subject to “depuration” which would allow their export to continue.
The author
All at sea with Brexit?
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In our occasional series of Brexit satire we offer you Railway Modeller and The Northern Farmer. Plus a fact checker to help you tell Brexit facts from fiction.
FACT and FICTION checker
FICTION : AC DC’s Angus Young does not have a signature hormone fed steak pie. He has a signature Gibson SG.
FACT : Australian beef is hormone injected. It can be selectively fed to children and vulnerable people as UK Government rules allow for cheap food to be dumped on schools, the NHS and care homes. Our EU membership protected us from dodgy food standards but we opted for a blue passport.
FACT : Liz Truss has NOT struck a great trade deal with Japan. Japan benefits five times more than we do. Our desperation to get Brexit done makes us an easy target for “fire sale” type trade deals. Truss wants to claim success by striking a deal with Australia. We will pay for this dearly. Free trade in 15 years time will decimate the economies of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and parts of England.
FICTION : Boris Johnson is not a train enthusiast. Allegedly he paints cardboard buses.
FACT : The rebrand of Great British Railways is an expensive distraction. See Grant Schapps’ ludicrous flag shagging video filmed with emotional music at the National Railway Museum in York, shortly to be renamed the Great British Brexit Museum.
“The beginning of a new railway era, that Britain can be proud of.”🚆
Transport Secretary @grantshapps has announced the #PlanForRail, to reform Britain’s railways and put passengers first.
— Department for Transport (@transportgovuk) May 20, 2021
FICTION : Mallard is not being put back into service, nor The Rocket to power HS2.
FACT : The Australian trade deal will spell a sharp decline in farming in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
FICTION : Ringo Starr is not stuck in the tunnel from Scotland to Northern Ireland. The tunnel is a work of fiction rather like Brexit.
FICTION : Jennifer Arcuri is not a farmer. She is about to release a TV drama in which she describes her sex life with Johnson : “We read sonnets to each other, then he rolled onto me like a binbag full of custard, gasping like an asthmatic octogenerian, as he reached his climax & I wondered if he’d got it in yet”.
No, we don't believe anything you say.
What we want to know is more from Jennifer Arcuri and others who have had personal experience of you. pic.twitter.com/4damu1I1JH
— Gordon Pearson 🇪🇺 #FBPE #FBPPR #FBPA #JohnsonOut (@gcpearson69) May 17, 2021
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Five years on and Brexit’s still undone. I often get quaint looks when I talk about Brexit in Kent now and some subtle or even less subtle social disapproval. For the record, I’m quite happy to be considered to be “so last year” until I am returned to the soil by my maker, or Brexit is placed in a shallow grave, whichever comes soonest. Brexit is in fact undone now that Johnson has realised he never read the contract. It will never be “done”. I told everyone that we’d be doing Brexit for the next 50 years and it begins to look that way. In five years it becomes apparent that we still don’t know what Brexit means but we are beginning to make some evaluation of what Brexit has brought us.
Economiceffects
£2.3 Trillion was lost in just one month from the city of London. Just for comparison and scale, that’s 58 years’ worth of our contribution of £39 billion to the EU wiped out in just one month. So, we would have to make up our losses due to Brexit until 2079 just from this impact alone. Let that sink in!!
Our Australia trade deal is worth 0.02% of GDP over 15 years. It would take 2000 deals like this to even make up our losses from our arrangements with the EU. At a generous estimate of our rate of deal making, we can expect to make up the losses from Brexit in trade deals by the year 3021. I know that’s bad economics as not all trade deals are worthless and some also take years not months but I think you should get the point.
£37 billion has wasted on test and trace. That’s more than what it takes to land a space mission on Mars at a mere £22.5 billion. Our contribution to the EU is £39 billion per year.
Despite promises made to fishermen on Brexit, the UK fishing industry will have been filleted by the time any new arrangements come into being with £1 Million being bled from the fisherman every DAY. Yet, we plan to spend £200 million on a Royal Yacht that the Royal family do not want or need. Brexit McBrexitFace will no doubt spend its time trawling international waters trying to net trade deals without catching anything more than scurvy.
Brexit shrank UK services exports by more than £110 billion over a four-year period. That’s 3 x our yearly contribution to the EU, much of which we get back.
Farmers have also been sold down the river with the introduction of hormone fed beef and the dumping of poor quality products into UK markets, just so that Liz Truss can claim success.
The building industry is beginning to show cracks with materials shortages and other supply chains being affected.
Food and drink exports from UK have declined by 50% since the beginning of 2021.
Coming soon, having lost EU steel import protections, our steel industry now faces a wave of cheap imports.
Hired goons distract people from Brexit shambles. Help us Re-Boot Britain by clicking the image.
Social / Welfare / Environmental
Brexit has been all consuming on Civil Service bandwidth and this means that there have been numerous areas of neglect. For example: social care, Grenfell, The Northern Ireland protocol and citizenship issues remain undone with massive consequences for lives and livelihoods. 305 000 people are caught in civil service backlogs for settled status and Johnson says he will not budge on the deadline of June 30th with impact on breaking up families and imprisonment at borders. Big issues in 2016 are still issues in 2021 due to the significant entropy of Brexit on progress across the board of Government.
“You can stay but your kids can’t”.
We are yet to see the whole impact of the end of the grace period at the borders but already all major supermarkets have imposed rationing on tinned tomatoes with food shortages predicted in the coming months and the army on standby.
And, of course, far from taking back control of £350 million per week for the NHS, Dido Harding is on the way to privatising your NHS. Was this on the side of a bus?
We did not need to do Brexit to deal with immigration. Our hostile environment has discouraged Europeans to work here. In particular we have seen a sharp decline in fruit pickers, care workers and other professions. The arguments made by Brexiteers to “grow our own” have not gathered any takers …
Instead of planting veg this year I have taken the Brexiteers advice to "grow our own". I have planted 3 doctors, 10 nurses, 5 scientists and 20 farmers in the ground. I now await the results #Brexiteers#BrexitReality#NHS#farming#ScienceResearch
— Re-Boot Britain – Rage Against The Brexit Machine (@BrexitRage) June 21, 2021
Political / Constitutional
The destruction of peace in Northern Ireland has already begun by the reckless abandonment of the Good Friday Agreement. Johnson promised there would be no border down the Irish Sea. He broke that promise, ending 30 years of peace on the island of Ireland. Kate Hoey has been cynically and dangerously stoking the fires of unrest in Northern Ireland, having promoted Brexit.
The destruction of the United Kingdom has begun with Scotland seeking independence, reunification of Ireland and independence movements beginning in Cornwall and the North East. Independence for Scotland and unity for Ireland are of course good things and entirely predictable consequences of Brexit. In extremis, England will be reduced to the People’s Republic of Thurrock by 2040!! Gibraltar has special status as a means of dealing with the fact that the majority of residents work in Spain. In 10-20 years time we can expect Gibraltar to be under Spanish control. The same goes for The Falkland Islands, The Channel Islands and The Isle of Man.
The UK is now a four nation state and a one party state with no effective opposition. It may sound hard to say this but Brexit is as much a product of a passive and fearful opposition than it is the result of a hard core of Brexit ultras and psychopaths.
Britain no longer has a special relationship with the USA as President Biden seeks to re-educate us about the realities of breaking international law. At the same time Biden has forged stronger links with Europe as a natural partner of similar size in terms of trade and other opportunities.
I invite Brexiteers to provide a list of benefits of Brexit – Five years waiting
Ethical / Legal
Protest is now being clamped down on, using COVID as an umbrella to hide under. Boris Johnson is to remove the powers of the Electoral Commission after they asked awkward questions about the redecoration of his flat.
Crony contracting continues as The Good Law Project reveals details of companies offered lucrative contracts based on personal networks rather than competence in the chosen industry. If you are to shrug and say “so what” to this, these contracts were for PPE. This means that people will have died unnecessarily because of faulty selection procedures. You may well say that the pandemic demanded a speedy response. Well the speediest response would have been to select companies with the capacity and competence to make the products rather than novices.
My own MP Mr Rehman Chishti is under investigation for having his hand in the till over property development scandals. You can help by reporting him to the bar council.
— Re-Boot Britain – Rage Against The Brexit Machine (@BrexitRage) June 21, 2021
We have still not found the identity of the Tory rapist. Is this an example for our children to look up to?
It now seems that our children are to sing a Soviet styles song in school to unite the country. I have a better suggestion – see the song below
Ignorance is strength – Post Brexit education syllabus
I could go on but I won’t. All this in just five years … and we’ve only just begun …
A collaborative effort to mark five years of Brexit carnage from Greg, Lisa, Patricia, Irina, Andrew, Adrian, Mike, Helga and the good people at Re-Boot Britain. Join us every Monday to Break Brexit Before Brexit Breaks Britain.
Please support our work – click on the boot to Re-Boot Britain
In our latest round up, we report on the tsunami of project reality stories on Brexit now starting to appear. Our extensive work on the street confirms that most Leavers are now extremely angry about being lied to. Leave voters now understand the toxic cocktail of Corona + Brexit on their lives and livelihoods. This is why our Government is spending another £1 billion telling us to “Get Ready for Brexit”. We’ve already spent similar sums of OUR taxes TWICE!
Phones 4 EU
Leave voters are astonished to learn that Brexit means they will have to:
Pay for private health insurance. In 2019 the average cost of private health insurance in the US was $20 576. This is why Boris Johnson uses the euphemism “Get Ready for Brexit”. “Get Ready for Death” does not trip off the tongue quite so well …
Pay additional phone roaming charges. The EU outlawed these charges. At the moment, phone companies have indicated that they will not reintroduce the charges, but, of course, everyone budgets are stretched, they will be allowed to do so and Brexit will provide them with the perfect excuse for reintroduction of roaming charges.
Register your pets for trips to European countries 4 months before travel. The EU Pet Passport will no longer apply.
Join us at Cats Against Brexit Mayhem – click the image to connect
Apply for work permits and visas. You may also need an IDP.
We have been warning of these effects for nearly four years. Our Tunbridge Wells correspondent sums it up well:
“If we insist on taking up a position like Belarus, we will be treated like Belarus” – Adrian Elkins-Daukes
If you are not sure of the rules, check the official advice on GOV.UK
Write to your MP Ask them to comment on these developments. Request that they resign if the Brexit travel promises are broken.
Nigel Farage’s Garage
This week, it was revealed that part of the garden of England will be converted into the largest lorry park in Europe, as part of desperate attempts to divert gridlocked traffic from the M20 and M2 after Brexit. This will produce a plethora of problems:
Only 2% of lorry drivers are certified to travel to the EU. This will lead to shortages in supply chains and other impacts. The Government has withdrawn its advice on what hauliers have to do under Brexit.
Michael Gove reported that the lorry park project is to cost £705 million or “one Johnson Jet paint job”. Much more importantly, the cost to businesses is estimated by HMRC at a staggering £20 billion per year.
New Brexit Currency : One Paint Job = One Billion
In order to maintain refrigeration for chilled food and pharmaceuticals, lorry drivers will be forced to run their engines, spewing diesel into the Kent countryside around Ashford, Canterbury, Thanet and the Cinque Ports. We face the difficult choice of food and life saving drug shortages or smog in East Kent with considerable impact on climate change.
Ashford Council were not consulted about these arrangements. This appears to have been done under a direct power and land grab from the council. Even Tory MP Damien Green has complained about the manner of the desperate changes.
Meanwhile, Manston airport is to be re-opened as a logistics and passenger terminal, long after a review concluded that it was too far away from London to be seriously considered. Desperate times call for desperate measures … this is clearly another Brexit unicorn.
Write to Damien Green to express your concerns about the devastation of the local area, the ludicrous waste of money and the impact on gridlock on Kent’s two main arteries.
James O’Brien was credited with the catch phrase Farage’s Garage – turns out that we coined the phrase over a year ago
Red tape replaced by Blue tape
One of the biggest proclaimed benefits of Brexit was the statement by Jacob Rees-Mogg that Brexit would result in the removal of a tsunami of red tape. It seems that Jacob was lying and we find that the red tape will be replaced by blue tape. We are not troubled by the colour of the tape, just that it exists. And it’s not just the hassle factor of 215 million customs declarations a year for individuals and businesses. The FT reported an additional cost of £7 billion EVERY year.
“If it’s good enough for India, it’s good enough for us” – Jacob Rees- Mogg
The changes at UK borders will cost £13 billion.
That’s £13 billion off business bottom lines and £13 billion on your cost of living as a consumer.
In case you have forgotten, we are doing Brexit to save £39 billion.
But we’ve already spent £200 billion on Brexit and counting.
Then there is the £20 billion and £7 billion pa to add in.
Imagine running your household budget in this way?
Write to your MP Ask for a business plan for Brexit at the “Net Present Value” (NPV) of the Brexit project. Ask how they plan to reimburse the net cost of Brexit per person at some £1500 per person per year and to articulate how this will be more than made up by a stream of personal benefits to you and your family.
Our writing is part of our overall ambition to restore trust and decency in politics. Please support our work at Go Fund Me.
It seems that Leave voters elected to “take back control” of the UK for the following reasons:
So an unelected technocrat could run the country (Dominic Cummings)?
So Russian oligarchs could infiltrate our institutions and spread communism through the country?
So that our NHS could be sold off? Yesterday Parliament voted against protecting the NHS from foreign control in case you missed this amidst stories of a 3 year old baby in a 3 month old baby’s skin.
Answers on a postcard please.
Today we take to Parliament to ask for Brexit to be suspended in the wake of Russian interference in elections and other matters. Be there, or write to your MP to ask them to do the same.
Some translations of recent populist oratory aka mutterings from the Dominic Cummings’ car boot camp of catchphrases. They fit neatly into the vernacular of the dodgy used Brexit car salesman. Whilst we are here:
“There was no suggestion of Russian interference in the Brexit referendum”
We did not look for any interference so none was found
“We’re taking back control of our borders, laws and money”
We are spending £20 billion per year on red tape
“Security is not political”
We have handed over our national security to Russia
A bright new future
“The NHS is not for sale”
We just passed a law that allows us to sell the NHS
“We’ll pursue an Australian Brexit deal”
There is no such thing as an Australia deal
“Good British common sense”
Mob rule
“Strong and Stable”
Dogmatic and insipid
Build, Build, Build
“Let me be clear”
Stand by for mendacity and obfuscation
“Let’s move on”
I don’t have an answer that won’t embarrass me.
“Brexit means Brexit”
We still don’t know what the fuck Brexit is …
“We’re all in this together”
We’re in this for ourselves and fuck the rest of you
“We’re committed and determined to do whatever”
We’ve no intention of doing anything
Banged up by unscrupulous police man
“Stay at home, Control the virus”
Go on a road trip with a baby and spread the virus to Geordies
“There will be adequate food” (Michael Gove)
We are prepared to let the poor starve
“Tough choices”
Easy victims
“Get Brexit done”
Sit on our hands and pretend to negotiate, but in reality do sod all
“People I speak to on the doorstep tell me”
I don’t speak to those plebs but they voted us in and this is what we’re going to do so fuck off
Would you buy a used car from these people?
“What the Great British public wants”
I don’t feel I can argue this point, but we’re in power and we’ll do what we please – fuck off!
“Let us be clear”
Let me fill the space with some meaningless drivel
“No deal is better than a bad deal”
We have messed up completely, totally lost out, can’t give in so we quit
“World-beating”
No one else counts
“We are not lowering British Food standards”
We just passed a law that we are lowering British Food standards
Thanks to Chris J. Stafford, Tony Vail, Charlotte Beyer, Finn Jackson, Don Adamson, Dominique Boulliez, Bill Sylvester, Edward Holmes, Nicola Tipton, Andrew Wallace, Jane Berry, Paul Anders, Stephen Corsham, Andy Janes, Sue Banting, Richard Henson, Nikki Fothergill, Jeremy Clarke, Arno Elout
The Russian report was released just one day before the Government went on holiday. Since that time it has sunk without trace, more quickly than a Russian double agent takes her bra off in a James Bond movie. In this post we explore what needs next to happen rather than burying the report under the weight of a Slimming for Britain campaign, run by “Fatboy Slim Johnson”
Our Tunbridge Wells correspondent, formerly a staunch Tory supporter, reports from the G7 summit in Biarritz, France this time last year where Boris Johnson began his career as British prime minister on the international stage with a lie which was massive even by his standards. On 26 July 2019 he said:
“We asked the people to vote on whether to stay in or out of the EU. They voted overwhelmingly, they voted substantially to leave by a big majority”
WRONG
Only a minority of UK registered voters voted for leave – just 37%. 17.4 million Leave voters are NOT a majority in a country with 46.5 million registered voters, or a country with a population of 67 million. The margin for Leave’s win was wafer thin, just 3.8%
That’s NOT substantial, overwhelming or big.
By comparison the amount to remain in the 1975 referendum was 34.5%. That was substantial, overwhelming and big.
Moreover
Many people directly affected by the referendum results were denied a vote.
Two of the four members of the United Kingdom – Scotland and Northern Ireland – voted against Brexit
Leave won by lying cheating and breaking the law. The Prime Minister’s own Counsel agreed, in a case before the Supreme Court concerning the referendum’s validity, that it was ’notorious’.
A Prime Minister who lies to the world is a liability to the British People … all 67 million of us
Write to your MP to demand honesty in politics and the removal of liars. Use Adrian’s article to help you.
Johnson further discredited our country’s reputation for honesty and reliability when, having reached an agreement with the EU on fundamental principles for our future trading relationship, he went back on his word after the 2019 election on the key issue of a level playing field As matters stand today, this issue may well result in “No Deal” with the EU which, combined with coronavirus, can only result in total “Britastrophe“.
Baroness Dido Harding stated today that no one could’ve foreseen the upsurge in demand for Corona virus testing at the present time. Really? At this time, schools across the country have been going back. Almost any parent could have told her that, at the beginning of term after the long holiday, many children catch a cold or at least a sniffle almost at once. Under current instructions, this requires them to be taken out of school for a coronavirus test and not return until and unless there is a negative result. Typhoid Harding’s statement shows her total ignorance of modern life and lack of common sense which disqualifies her for any post in this or probably any other area of public service. Matt Hancock continues to support her incompetence.
Blinkered
But at least Dido’s track record has been consistent. Failed at Talk Talk. Failed at stopping people herding at Cheltenham. Failed at the NHS. Failed at Corona Test, Track and Trace. Will she go down with that ship?
I know I left too much mess and Destruction to come back again And I caused nothing but trouble I understand if you can’t talk to me again And if you live by the rules of it’s over Then I’m sure that that makes sense
We went out to the quaint town of Deal in Kent yesterday. I heaved a sigh on the morning as I wondered whether it was worth writing a press release for local media. I remembered one of the maxims I took, not from my MBA, but from George Michael and Wham “If you’re gonna do it, do it right”. So I dashed off a press release and mailed local media outlets.
Cats and Dogs against Brexit
A couple of hours later the press release was picked up by a fantastic journalist. I got straight on to her by phone as we were on our way to the event, managing to lose our way due to multi-tasking on the way! A few more hours later and we had coverage across all Kent with our message that Corona Crisis + Brexit disaster = A Britastrophe. The journalist even included our video, which was quite surprising as it is fairly biased against Brexit. Of course, a note to Byline Times, controversy sells newspapers …
Find the article Kent Online – The comments from a few remaining Brexiteers are quite something to behold. There is far less push back than one year ago but still some of the usual diehards are claiming that they are taking back control just when Boris Johnson is removing all of our rights and the rule of law. These few keyboard warriors are not representative of the vast majority of people, who actually agreed with our proposition, even in Brexity Deal. Brexit realities are at last beginning to sink in with the toxic combination of Corona + Brexit worth a whopping 12% + 9% GDP loss on our economy if we continue with Brexit on 31.12.20. I’d cancel Christmas for the kids right now.
In other news, our latest blog post “Snitch on your MP“ has been extremely well received. In this article, we ask people to report MPs for breaking international law. Feel free to share and snitch on the MPs – it’s the morally right thing to do.
We will soon reach the eye of the COVID-Brexit storm. This offers an opportunity for suspension of Brexit. Our song “Britastrophe” will be launched soon, to be sent to MPs as well as enjoyed in its own right.
We continue to face various threats from trolls and local lunatics. Please support our campaign to protect my family against these people.
