Political rhetoric against practical need

Political rhetoric against practical need.

European upheaval.

Some thoughts about Britain and the leave EU. The current ( early March 2020) situation is that

some parts of the British press report, that French politicians are voicing threats to Britain, if they do not allow the EU fleets to fish in Britiash sovereign territorial; internationally recognised; marine catchment areas.

It is possible that these reported statements are distortions of what was actually said. It is probable that the statements were intended to gain domestic support, for the speaking politician; rather than be meaningful internationally. The reports do not clearly state what “sanctions” the EU can bring to bear on Britain to force the allowance of EU fleets into British water. Nor do they show what “price” the EU will be willing to pay, if they are allowed to remain in these fishing grounds.

The size of British owned fishing fleets has been so diminished, during the time of membership in the EU, that what is left could survive if they (and only they) had access to all British waters, even if they gave up access to the remaining EU waters. The EU quota system ensured that while British fleets had nominal access to other EU nations waters, they could not actually fish there.

It is possible that agreements could be reached that allows British fleets to fish in non EU waters. Britain has VERY little to gain and much to loose by allowing EU fleets to fish in British waters.

What should be possible, once complete freedom from EU control has been obtained, is the bringing of sanity back to fishing regulation within British waters. Ending the practice of forcing fishing fleets to dump good fish, dead, back into the sea because it is the wrong type of fish, within the bureaucracy crazy, EU rules; would be a start. There has long been suspicion that many of the rules were only followed by the British fleet, that other nations did not enforce the rules on their own fleets. Similar suspicions are felt over many agricultural policies and their enforcement by EU nations.

Whilst the EU bureaucracy likes to claim that only one set of rules apply within all the EU, in practice this may not be always true, local enforcement of EU rules is not necessarily consistent. The agricultural policy, of the EU, is largely designed to politically placate the large number of French farmers, who work much smaller, on average, areas of land, than do British farmers. The practices and produce of these French farms are relatively out of date. But the political policies are designed to support them, in return for the sectors support for the EU bureaucracy. If or when, economic reality forces changes to the EU common agricultural policy, the support of the French, Greek, Spanish and parts of the German agriculture sector will evaporate and turn to social unrest.

The use of cheap “guest” labour will also bring long term problems, Whilst other nations are having to mechanise farming systems, to save labour costs; many farms, even in the UK, are avoiding this by the use of temporary low wage workers. This can only ever be a short term action. Even this cheap labour will still be more expensive than machines. Eventually these farming practices will have to change. What the countries do with all this “guest” labour will be a political minefield. How the agriculture industry copes with the change will determine if it survives globally or not. The food market is global, many do not like this, many, quite rightly, are concerned by issues of food quality and safety but nothing will stop the continued globalisation of the food supply. The population is too great for”organic” and artisan production methods to feed it. Unless the population is reduced, food production has to be artificially increased.

The fact remains; the EU sells more to Britain than Britain sell to the EU. Economically the EU needs British money.

The Euro is not working for the benefit of all those parts of the EU forced to use it. German and French financial institutions are not as robust as the ruling elite of the EU would like everyone to believe. There are economic, political and social unrest in nearly all EU member states. The German and French national governments are going to suffer political turmoil within the next 3 years. Their politicians know this and many of their more “robust” statements are aimed at their own domestic electorate, rather than at international trade negotiations.