He has today offered “a dram of whisky and a fish supper” to anyone who can track down Scottish Conservative MPs missing in action while distillers and fishermen suffer. Not content with supporting a Brexit that has screwed over both industries, the Conservative Government is making it worse by whacking up spirits duty and scrapping a visa system for fishing crew overnight that forced boat owners back to port.
During a key vote this week, Scottish Conservative MPs including Secretary of State for Scotland Alister Jack, Andrew Bowie, David Duguid and John Lamont voted against Alistair’s proposal to reverse a hike in spirits duty on distillers, while David Mundell and Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross were mysteriously absent.
Meanwhile not one Scottish Conservative MP attended Alistair’s Urgent Question on fishing worker visas, despite the issue affecting fishermen across Scotland.
Alistair raged:
“This is less “Where’s Wally?” than “Where’s the whole pack of Wallies?”
“Scottish Conservatives love to take election photos by whisky stills or on the quayside. Douglas Ross must have a photo album an inch thick of him swirling drams with Boris Johnson. When it comes to these crunch votes and debates, however, they are nowhere to be found. The Tories jump in front of the camera using local businesses as political props but they are missing in action when it is time to deliver.
“Fishermen, distillers and other businesses will have seen the empty Conservative benches while we challenged ministers on urgent issues this week. They will rightly ask if they are getting value for money from these MIA MPs.
“If anyone can track down Douglas Ross or any other Scottish Tory MP and get them to explain why they are abandoning distillers and fishermen in their time of need then I will gladly buy them a dram of whisky and a fish supper for their trouble. That small investment would be more benefit to local businesses than the parliamentary efforts of the Scottish Conservatives this week.”
Just in case Scottish Tories are reading this, they should watch Alistair’s urgent question on fishing below and hang their heads in shame that they were not there to support Scotland’s fishing crews.
People in rural communities will be wondering what on earth the point of voting Conservative is when their elected representatives don’t bother to help them.
COP26 finished its first week with a super abundance of world leaders making a plethora of pledges about climate change. Deforestation is to end (except maybe in Indonesia). More money is to be made available for green technology in developing countries. Eighteen countries (most of them small) have agreed to move away from coal generated energy. Now the leaders have flown home in their gas guzzling carbon emitting private jets and left it to officials to hammer out the devilish details and attempt to wring out concessions from the biggest polluters, mainly China and India who together are responsible for over a third of the planet’s carbon emissions. On the latter point they will have a tough job. India refuses to commit to climate change targets until 2070 which most climatologists reckon is much too little much too late. China, for its part, is continuing to build and export electricity stations powered by its massive coal reserves. Meanwhile, the Global Carbon Project reported that global carbon emissions are climbing back to pre-pandemic levels, with India rising by 12.6% and China by 4% between 2020 and 2021. The climate watchdogs predict that 2022 could see record levels of carbon emissions as air travel returns to pre-pandemic levels.
In a hard-hitting and justifiably furious article in the Sunday Herald, Alistair Carmichael highlights the betrayal of those working in the seafood industry whose livelihood has been ruined by Brexit enhnced by the incompetence of UK Government ministers.
He sets out what is wrong with the deal:
Having made a great pantomime of holding out to get the best deal for fishermen, Johnson folded. Instead we found a deal that the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation described this week as “desperately poor” and “the worst of both worlds”.
On close scrutiny the deal leaves our fishermen able to catch fewer fish in most key species, “wins” us shoals of “paper fish” (which we have no economic interest in catching) and leaves us locked into a deal that we barely control and will only be able to leave in 2026 if we are prepared to pay a heavy political and economic price.
It’s already having a devastating impact:
Traditionally, the first week of the new year is a bumper one for exports before trade quietens down for a couple of months.
This year, red-faced Scottish traders were unable to meet their orders as the lorries carrying their slowly deteriorating stock sat idling in Larkhall – unable to penetrate the new fog of bureaucracy in Johnson’s deal.
Our Parliament has a reputation as being one of the oldest and best in the world. Every time I walk through the Palace of Westminster, I am reminded of who has walked these same corridors.
Shirley Wiliams, Barbara Castle, William Wilberforce talking about abolishing slavery, Lloyd George bringing forward the People’s Budget, Aneurin Bevan bringing in the legislation that set up the NHS.
All these great things, over centuries.
In 200 years time, I doubt they’ll be talking about the Day the Fish Smiled.
It was Business Questions. The SNP’s Tommy Sheppard raised the crisis in our fishing industry caused by the Government. But of course, he couldn’t just leave it there. He had to use it as a proxy to ask to have a Commons debate on Scottish independence. I mean, the industry is on its knees. One of its key players, Loch Fyne, is talking about only being able to last another week. And all because the Government first of all pursued Brexit, did so in such a cack-handed manner that the decisions were only made about how the seafood industry would operate on Christmas bloody Eve with a week to go and then didn’t get its finger out to produce the relevant paperwork. This level of incompetence is pretty much standard practice for this lot.
It’s infuriating that the SNP constantly let the Tories off the hook by turning the question to independence. Keep it on the subject. Make them own the mess that they have made. Nope.
So what should have been an exchange on a crisis of the Tories’ making ended like this.
The fishing issue was covered a moment ago by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should have tuned into that debate, rather than bringing it up at business questions, but the Government are tackling this issue and dealing with it as quickly as possible. The key is that we have our fish back: they are now British fish, and they are better and happier fish for it.
Not exactly edifying, is it?
Earlier, the grown-ups were present. Our Alistair Carmichael took the Government’s actions to pieces in an urgent question, laying bare the damage that they had done.
The Prime Minister and Victoria Prentis set the bar pretty low yesterday but George Eustice brought it clattering down today with a performance of breath-taking complacency. Frankly insulting to industry that he is already backtracking on the PM’s offer of compensation yesterday. https://t.co/m2kH6OFFjZ
The Brexit deadline came, went, came again and went again. Both sides look foolish. Which means that if nothing, else, both sides desperately want an agreement and neither side wants to be the one that walks away from the table.
Fish appear to be the biggest sticking point. And the two countries at loggerheads are traditional foes Britain and France.
Economically speaking, neither country’s fishing industry makes much of a contribution to the respective GDPs, although the French industry is almost three times the size of the British. But they both have well-organised community-based political lobbies, backed up by history, tradition and an overwhelming sense of injustice.
Up until the 1950s Britain had the world’s largest fishing industry, and its dominant position stretched centuries into the past. William Pitt the Elder called cod “British Gold” and Victorian Grimsby was the world’s biggest fishing port. Overfishing, the loss of the Icelandic waters, the extension of exclusive economic zones and finally, the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), reduced the industry from whale to sprat. There are now 24,000 people employed in the British fishing business compared to 65,000 in the French.
The CFP was – is – a bad deal for British fishermen. This is mainly because it was negotiated on the basis of historic fish catches in the 1970s when the industry was still based on a distant water fleet and the British waters were left to a large degree to French, Belgian and Dutch fishermen.
British fishermen don’t expect a return to the glory days but they want the lion’s share of fish in the resource-rich British waters. Of the roughly 6.4 million tonnes of fish caught in EU waters in 2018, 7000,000 came from UK waters. The French want to hang on to what they’ve got.
There was a bit of a glitch yesterday, as the press releases ended up in my spam folder for some reason. Things seem to be back to normal, so the usual service resumes here…
Welsh Lib Dems – time to embrace zero-carbon housing
Lib Dems: EU resolution a vital step in UK’s duty to stand up for people of Hong Kong
Davey demands urgent action as knife crime epidemic continues to spread
Umunna: OBR report shows No Deal Brexit would be unforgivable
Lib Dems: Johnson’s ‘fishy tales’ have no plaice in Number Ten
This is particularly interesting because, as Catherine Bearder points out, Nigel is spending more time showboating on the Thames than he has ever spent actually standing up for the British fishing industry at the European Parliament Fisheries Committee which it’s part of his job to be on.
Every week, Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Scotland, Michael Moore MP, writes a column for newspapers in his Borders Constituency. Here is the latest edition.
Fairtrade fortnight
Fairtrade fortnight is now drawing to a close and it has been a great couple of weeks of raising awareness of the brand across the UK to inspire more people to buy Fairtrade. The theme of the fortnight was ‘Go Further’ to encourage people to try new Fairtrade products. I know that many Borderers already buy Fairtrade coffee, tea and bananas, but there are now so many more products available that are definitely worth …
Before the rise in popularity of Indian curries, kebabs and Chinese take aways, battered fish and chips were considered the British national dish. Rock salmon was a staple – among the cheapest offerings in fish and chip shops around the country. However, demand for “rock salmon” devastated the shark’s population off the coasts of Britain and France, where the spiny dogfish is widely considered to be critically endangered.
The Common Fisheries Policy was introduced by the European Union in the 1970s to ensure a profitable and sustainable fishing industry – an objective in which it has completely failed.
Simon R @Michael: You appear to be questioning my liberalism. But, like it or not, the nature of the Universe is that people have to work because - bluntly, if everyone...
Michael BG Peter Martin,
I do accept that the economy needs people to do paid work to work. However, each individual makes choices and are not therefore forced to pay t...
Roger Lake This is -- or ought to be!-- amazing! And alarming. So far there are 12 reasoned responses to my title, most of them finding fault with my recommended propos...
Steve Trevethan Might being sufficiently frightened of the main stream media, to the extent that a political party does not tell reasonable approximations of (socio-economic) t...
Geoff Reid The usual good sense from Peter Wrigley. The Conservatives and their media cheer leaders cannot get their heads round the possibility of higher taxes helping to...
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