Starmer’s ‘Brexit reset’ has cast fishermen adrift
Handing the EU control of Britain’s fisheries is a disgraceful betrayal of our coastal communities.
Brian Denny
Keir Starmer has proudly presented his dismal plans for a so-called Brexit reset. This includes, among other things, sacrificing Britain’s already hard-pressed fishing communities to the EU, by handing over fishing grounds for another 12 years.
This deal is, simply put, disastrous. It massively extends what was supposed to be a temporary post-Brexit phase-out period for EU vessels to continue fishing in British waters. This was originally set to expire next June, five years after the UK formally left the EU. It will now only run out in June 2038. While future governments will technically be able to rip up the agreement, the deal contains a clause that allows EU leaders to respond with punitive tariffs on British exports, should fishing access be restricted before then.
It should come as no surprise that hard-nosed EU negotiators should demand, at the last minute, a block on handing back control of Britain’s fishing waters. After all, the UK has some of the richest fishing grounds in the world and by far the most productive in Europe. Before Brexit, around half of EU catches came from UK waters.
For British fishermen, Starmer’s Brexit reset is a familiar betrayal. It was in 1970 that Conservative prime minister Edward Heath first colluded to secretly give away this country’s greatest renewable asset. This laid the foundations for the Common Fisheries Policy, introduced in 1983, which enshrined equal access to European Economic Community (EEC) member states’ waters. It imposed quotas ostensibly to prevent over-fishing, but it disproportionately disadvantaged British fishermen.
Even after the EU and UK finally secured a Brexit deal in 2021, EU fishing vessels maintained the right to fish UK waters until 2026. This was yet another blow for British fishing communities, which already had to endure a raw deal through the CFP quota system. In theory, after Brexit, the UK should have gained a bigger share of the fishing quota.
In practice, most of the UK quota – 54 per cent – is in any case owned by foreign interests, and the rest by a few millionaires. Small fishing outfits were squeezed out under this system.
Britain abandons its natural resources
Other island nations, as well as those with long coastlines, seem to treasure the natural resources they are blessed with and will stop at nothing to defend their interests for the nation and future generations. In fact, Greenland was one of the first countries to leave the EEC back in 1985 (years before Brexit was even a word), largely because it wanted greater control over fishing rights. Similarly, Norway is still not a formal member of the European Union, in part because EU membership demands participation in the CFP – one of the most insane rackets ever devised.
Britain’s ruling class has long taken a different approach. Fishing, like so many other British sectors, fell victim to the trend for rapid de-industrialisation, selling off anything not nailed down and trusting in the vagaries of the finance sector. This led directly to the effective privatisation of the fishing sector and the growth in unregulated trade in licences. It also further encouraged the influx of ‘quota hoppers’ from Spain and the Netherlands. That is, when fishing vessels registered in the UK are effectively owned and operated by nationals or companies from another EU member state, thus granting them access to fish under the UK’s quota, rather than their own nation’s. By 1996, there were around 150 such quota hoppers on the UK register. Around 40 of those vessels had joined before CFP quotas took effect. The rest had simply bought their way in since.
This process has seen fishing rights stripped from many small coastal communities in the UK. Instead, they have been consolidated in a handful of very rich fishing monopolies and transformed into a tradable commodity.
An Unearthed investigation published in 2018 found that well over a quarter of the UK’s fishing quota – 29 per cent – was in the hands of just five families from the Sunday Times Rich List. The reach of this tiny elite dwarfs the holdings of the many quota hoppers, who in total hold 13 per cent of UK quota. Overall, more than two-thirds of the UK’s fishing quota is now in the hands of just 25 companies.
One of the groups that has been most ill-served by the UK’s management of fishing rights has been its small-scale, inshore fishermen who are leaving the industry in despair. This group comprises more than three-quarters of the UK’s fishing fleet and provides around half of the jobs in the catching sector.
The fishing communities that have already been crippled by over half a century of greed, political horse-trading and an environmental disaster created by the lunatic CFP are viewed as expendable by political elites. Starmer’s so-called reset is nothing more than a reheated betrayal. It is a continuation of the long, slow sellout of Britain’s coastal communities.
A Foreign Policy for an Independent Britain
During the week of the VE Day commemorations, we offer this statement as a proposal for a fundamentally new development in the country’s international and foreign policy.
With vision and good leadership, our country could focus our resources on maintaining the peace achieved 80 years ago, defend ourselves if ever needed and forge an independent foreign policy. Such a policy puts the interests and defence of Britain at its centre while refusing to dominate and invade other countries or be bullied into supporting conflicts that do not threaten the security of Britain.
Real national security comes from having a strong united society at home. That is why we call for investment and rebuilding of British manufacturing, of our services, including health and education and of our capacity to feed and provide for ourselves as self-reliantly as possible. The more we are dependent on imports of any kind the more insecure we are as a nation. The more we depend on the movements of chaotic private, globally spread markets, the more we are subservient to circumstances beyond our control.
For too long Government policy in Britain was to follow the military lead of the United States, and the nation-breaking economics of European Union. Seeking to ride these two tigers has humiliated us and led us into wars not of our own choosing. It is even more dangerous now that these two power blocs are threatening to pull in different directions, and each wants to claim our allegiance. We have detached from the EU, but not yet the US. US capitalism is closely tied up in Britain and the US-run NATO controls our foreign policy.
A free, independent nation should not be led by the aggressive machinations of others; its foreign policy should be genuinely independent, determined only by the democratic will of its own people. We have left the EU, and we should now prioritise leaving NATO; this aggressive pact should play no part in our independent foreign policy. The issue is not so much how much we spend on our armed forces as a percentage of Gross National Product, but who determines how much we spend, and why.
The Defeat of Nazism
The inhuman forces unleashed by the Nazis nearly a hundred years ago were defeated by the combined strength and bravery of freedom-loving people. No single sacrifice should be forgotten when remembering what contributed to the victory, whether by the teenagers and students in Germany who were hanged and guillotined for distributing leaflets criticising Hitler when he was first elected, or the resistance movements throughout Europe and within Germany itself. Everyone played their part.
Nor should we ever forget the largest scale sacrifices of all that were made by the people of the Soviet Union, where at least 25 million lives were lost in the war against fascism, and where some of the most decisive victories were won against the Nazi armies. The battles of Kursk, Leningrad and Stalingrad must always be studied.
The deep, progressive and trade union traditions in Britain, meant domestic fascism was never able to take root here. The fortitude and clarity of campaigners in the 1930s swept the Blackshirts from our streets and many British trade unionists and others were the first to join the International Brigades to fight the rise of the fascists in Spain.
Relative to most European countries where there have been either significant fascist governments for a period or significant, persistent and strong fascist parties, Britain has not been plagued in such a way. Our internationalist traditions outside of government circles have been very strong and thrive today. Our welcoming of refugees and asylum seekers from other lands has been exemplary and goes back many generations and should never be confused with questions of immigration.
In recent years the migration of labour throughout the world and within the European mainland, has been engineered to weaken the labour force both within those countries which people leave and those where they emigrate to. The so-called free movement of people has accompanied the free movement of capital. Neither are forms of freedom, both make workers and nations slaves to global capital movements.
The Growth of US Domination and the EU
In response to the defeat of the Nazis the United States, through its Marshall Plan in Europe and the creation of various global entities such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, sought economic and political domination through the dollar. Alongside these financial institutions we saw the creation of NATO to serve US interests, and the growth of European integration which eventually became the EU.
Not only did these institutions remove British sovereignty over foreign policy, but they also joined forces to turn back the post war advances of the Soviet Union and the advances made in many Western European countries, including our own. Following the defeat of fascism British industries, public services, welfare, health and housing were expanded and social and economic policies were based on collective, nationally organised values and systems. All these achievements became threatened.
The undermining of this post Second World War progress was deliberately accelerated by the neoliberal politics and economics pioneered in the US and Britain and then adopted globally. This entailed removing national protections on production and capital flows, and the globalisation of trade so that individual nations were less able to produce across a diverse range of products necessary for the enhancement of life. The cornerstones of neoliberalism were the privatisation of public services and the break-up of workers’ and trade union rights.
At heart, neoliberalism also meant the reduction of public and democratic national power in favour of private corporate power. At the root of this new, unfettered corporate power was the ascendancy of finance – Wall Street and the City of London reigned supreme. Wealth moved rapidly from the pay packets of workers to the board of directors’ bank accounts giving us a cost-of-living crisis and them the time of their lives.
Such corporate powers are not nationally based; they no longer care for the restrictions democratically elected governments seek when promoting the wishes of their own electorates. Their modus operandi is the offshore tax haven, secret deal and secret bank account; they redefine nations as reactionary, protectionist, chauvinist things of the past. They foster a culture of individual property and identity rights, rather than shared and national ones.
We, however, believe to the contrary. We believe Britain is all who live and work here and have no other bolt hole or foreign investments. To be patriotic and proud of our country is to be proud of the progressive achievements of us as a people. We happen to be from a country that has achieved many political and socially pioneering firsts in world history and created some of the most important social rights. By asserting our strengths as a nation, we seek to reclaim these rights and our sense of collective, public good, that recent history has so severely undermined.
Rebuilding a Nation
To identify progressively with our nation is not about flying the union jack on a food bank, or empty jingoism about how great our country is, it is a far deeper matter about the people determining their own destiny in their own interests. Without demonstrating that we can look after our own county and our own people we cannot claim to be true internationalists and provide significant support to others overseas.
We should not look back on the history of Britain and reduce it only to the history of robber barons, slave owners, pirates, ruthless mill owners or sadistic imperialists. Britain has a great history of struggle for progress spanning centuries, such as the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, sparked by a poll tax and fuelled by widespread discontent over low pay. Our struggle has passed through generations of artisans and workers, taking in the Chartists of the 19th century, the Suffragettes and Greenham women of the 20th onto modern trade unionists and democratic campaigners.
Britain is the great democratic radical tradition, from the medieval guilds and conventicles to the dissenting, non-conformist churches. It is the science, technology and secular consciousness that flowed from the first Industrial Revolution. It is the traditions of progressive liberties, non-sectarianism, free speech and respect. It is a country whose people loathe racism and discrimination.
To change the world now and rebuild our own country after 50 years of domination by others, there must be a re-assertion of the importance of national sovereignty. We want a world of self-determining nations coexisting in peace for the good of humanity. This principle must form the basis of Britain’s foreign policy. We should not interfere in the affairs of others; they should not interfere in ours. Wealth created in Britain should be reinvested in Britain.
Rebuild Britain Brick by Brick
Paul Nowak General Secretary of the TUC has succinctly set out the position that not just the trade unions, but that the public and political spheres should adopt in relation to the new government.
How Labour can govern for working people | TUC
Britain's economy has been brutally disfigured over forty five years, it has been skewed to benefit the banks and board rooms in an unprecedented way.
It must now be substantially rebalanced towards industrial growth and production serving working people. Healthy manufacturing is the key to reinvestment in our public services.
Making things while protecting the natural environment is the source of all wealth.
Rebuilding is a constructive, material process which demands long term and practical approaches. It needs new forms of collaborative and collective effort and new ways of investing in production without reliance on lending from private finance.
Now free of restrictive procurement rules, British manufacturing can benefit from public investment in new ways and avoid the debilitating effects of mass importation of goods and mass export of capital.
The squandering of wealth in costly private finance initiatives and stock market speculation can be reversed.
Our work in our non sectarian think tank Rebuild Britain will continue to provide ideas and support for all those seeking a genuine industrial revival, cultural renaissance and political re engagement with the democratic creativity of an increasingly united England, Scotland and Wales
Leave Cynicism for Better Times
Doug Nicholls, Chair of Rebuild Britain, encourages creative engagement with the new government
Tony' Blaire's government was Margaret Thatcher’s greatest legacy designed to ensure the continuity of the assault on national independence and workers.
Keir Starmer’s government is not of that ilk and has indicated a potential domestic shift from the decades of pillage and candy floss economics towards real production and industrial renewal. Wealth creation, not financial speculation now dominates government thinking.
Therefore Paul Nowak’s statement on behalf of the TUC welcoming constructive engagement with the government to rebuild our country should be heeded.
The election turnout at 57 per cent of the electorate was the lowest for 100 years and although Labour got a landslide, its share of the vote was 33.7 per cent, that is 20 per cent of the total number of those eligible to vote.
Many commentators are using such statistics to undermine the new government already and challenge its legitimacy.
Rebuild Britain's Manufacturing
A Strategy for Survival
The devastating decline of British manufacturing over many decades is widely agreed.
Now, we have to stop pretending that we can sustain a viable economy for the long term without rebuilding a larger and stronger manufacturing base.
Britain has a trade deficit chasm because we import vastly more than we export. We have largely stopped making things and buy too much from abroad, especially from the EU.
UK investment levels have been chronically low for many decades and we remain at the bottom of the OECD investment league table of industrial nations. That has to change.
The renaissance of British industry will not happen if left simply to market forces. It must be driven by government action on many fronts.
Our pamphlet will demonstrate that the disappearance of so much of Britain’s historic manufacturing base has been extraordinary and exceptional by any comparison.
We examine the collapse of Britain’s manufacturing employment, the fact that Britain has persistently failed to invest, with the lowest level of investment in the developed nations of the OECD, leading to a yawning trade deficit chasm.
A significant cause of Britain’s industrial weakness has been its long term overvaluation of Sterling, making our exports expensive and imports cheap, and that managing the Sterling exchange rate down to an economically appropriate and competitive level is necessary to underpin any possible recovery in manufacturing.
Beyond this primary necessity the state must:
- Drive a ‘Buy British’ public procurement strategy
- Promote the on-shoring of manufacturing production, especially of supply chains
- Develop an active and effective government role in driving up domestic investment
- Legislate to ensure a substantial expansion in the national skills base
- Substantially expand state aids to industry and regional industrial support
- Expand the role of public ownership including an urgent nationalisation of the steel industry
- Establish a new commission for industry involving government, employers and trade unions.
NHS Campaign Resources
The General Election may be behind us but the campaign to return the statutory duty for healthcare to the Secretary of State goes on.
Below is the flyer produced for the election. This will be updated soon for the upcoming political and trade union conferences.
Model Motion for Union Conferences Renew the National Health Service
- This Branch notes that the duty of the Secretary of State for health for the National Health Service was removed by the 2012 Health and Social Care Act, the duty that was central to sustaining a free at the point of access, publicly funded and democratically accountable NHS staffed by dedicated public sector employees committed to the public service ethos.
- The Branch believes that without democratic control of NHS funding and the delivery of health care, and with companies increasingly delivering health services within the NHS, pressure on NHS funding will grow to provide profits to these companies and not for public benefit.
- The Branch therefore believes that the maximum public good and the best use of public funding will only be achieved if the use of NHS premises by private health companies is ended and the Secretary of State’s statutory duty for the NHS and the nation’s health is restored.
- The Branch further asserts that these two fundamental reforms will be cost free and vital to restoring the founding principles of the NHS and the concept of genuinely free health care for all, funded from the public purse, controlled by the Secretary of State and thus democratically accountable to Parliament.
- This Branch therefore calls on the Union to formally adopt these policies and principles and to seek to commit the TUC to them as a matter of urgency.
(For Labour Party affiliated Unions please prioritise for Conference and constituencies.)
Donate to Rebuild Britain
Campaigning to Rebuild Britain is a huge task and any contribution will be welcome.
We accept donations from credit/debit cards or from your PayPal account.
We Want Thames Water Back Debt-Free
by Bob Ansell
One of Margaret Thatcher’s arguments at the time of privatisation was that private companies would be able to borrow for investment. But, according to the National Audit Office, the newly privatised Thames Water plc and its subsequent owners have instead increased paid large dividends to shareholders and charges by around 40% in real terms up to 2015.
There is a great deal of evidence to show that throughout its post-privatisation history, Thames Water's infrastructure has been severely compromised because of the relentless pursuit of short-term financial gains. For over 30 years our precious water resource has been handed round like a financial plaything from one foreign private investment bank to another.
This is particularly the case from 2006 when Thames Water was acquired by the Australian investment bank, Macquarie. They simply prioritised boosting profits at the expense of investing in essential infrastructure upgrades. As a result, the utility's network has deteriorated significantly, leading to frequent water mains bursts, leakages, and disruptions in supply that adversely affect the public and the environment. In addition, Macquarie used some of its pension fund to pay dividends to shareholders. This has led to an increased personal risk to those currently working for Thames Water.
Thames Water may be the most obvious failure that is in the news, but the entire water industry is in trouble. So, what do we do about the problem? In England and Wales 70% of our water is owned and controlled by foreign companies at our expense. It is interesting to note that Scotland did not join the privatisation frenzy. And, since 1989, investment in water infrastructure in Scotland is 35% higher than in England, while bills have risen 10% less.
Across most of the world we stand out and almost alone for allowing private investment banks to dictate the investment in our water infrastructure and control our natural water resources. For obvious reasons almost no other country allows this. We must take control of our water in a manner which does not follow the usual privatisation story of private profit leading to public bail-out and liability. We have already paid for our water industry. Now we want it back, debt-free.
Trade Unions Must Become the Political Leadership of Britain
Government Spending and Debt: A New Approach
Rebuild Britain has produced highly acclaimed publications on the steps required to rebuild the British economy.
This is the third pamphlet published by Rebuild Britain. Our first two look at what is needed to rebuild the fishing industry and manufacturing. We will not be able to move forward with a strong economy unless we attend to Britain’s finances and the position of the financial sector. More austerity, more national debt, more market madness, greater inequality and rising prices are not the answer. This pamphlet shows how they can be avoided. Written in an accessible style, this pamphlet provides an educational tool for trade unionists and community activists setting out the straightforward solutions that are needed and urges readers to translate them into new policies in their organisations. Public finances, that is the income and expenditure of government, and private finance, that is the vast wealth in money of the banks, pension schemes, insurance companies and money traders in general, have for a long time been regarded by workers as mysterious, with an aura of magic. The operations of the great institutions of finance are seen as alien, unfathomable and complex. In truth, there is no mystery, just mystification; no complexity, just confusion. For trade unions, public finance has often been regarded as a secondary question to the bigger, priority issues of pay and conditions, economic strategy and industrial policy. In fact, public finance is the bigger picture. It is the scaffolding that buttresses and conditions the shape of the nation’s whole economy. Sound, stable public finances are the pre-requisite to any serious attempt to rebuild industry, revive agriculture and public services and combat climate change.
You can download a PDF copy from here.
Positive signs that Labour has recognised the importance of rebuilding Britain's manufacturing capacity outside the EU.
Some of the media reports following an interview with Kier Starmer
These are positive signs that Labour has accepted the referrendum vote and intends to support the Rebuilding of Britain outide the EU. They must be held to that commitment.
Rebuild Britain's Fishing Industry
by Brian Denny
Develop our coastal communities for a sustainable future in an independent Britain
Brian Denny
Introduction
Brexit Deal Bad for Fishing Industry
Yet the Brexit trade deal agreed at the end of 2020 was a further blow to the industry as EU boats will continue to fish in UK waters for some years to come. Added to this the EU has effectively put a blockade on fish exports on Britain with new customs arrangements and vindictively banned the import of live shellfish that are often landed from the same fishing grounds as French fishing boats. Read more of the pamphlet online.
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Make Britain Self-reliant
What is Self-Reliance?
Self-reliance is not self-isolation let alone self-sufficiency. Neither is it protectionist; it provides protection not protectionism; protection for the nation’s inhabitants and its natural resources. It means creating a safe space to inhabit, a secure nation with a strong industrial base that can confidently forge non-exploitative links with other nations.A corollary of self-reliance is respect for the environment. Looking after our own environment to ensure long-term sustainability will cease to be a box to be ticked or a tax to be paid and become an integral part of our economic activities.
Services Dominate Britain's Economy
A key aspect of self-reliance is the need to rebalance the economy away from the service sector. Services are important, including financial services, but they are subordinate to the sectors they service. Unlike manufacturing, they are not a primary source of wealth creation and treating them as such distorts the country’s economy. Currently, services account for 80% of the economy, a ratio that is no longer sustainable; it is like having more TV service engineers than TV receivers. A national conversation on post-pandemic Britain is currently under way and everyone must be involved. Trade unions are leading the debate. This is what the manufacturing union Unite had to say immediately after the trade deal with the EU was agreed: ‘The government must not be allowed to put its feet up and claim job done. Far from it. The new year will bring a need to roll up our sleeves in the national interest and build the broadest possible alliance to safeguard and advance the long-term interests of our manufacturing heartlands.’The TUC spelled it out
“Now the prime minister must make good on his promise to level up Britain. And he needs to act fast. There can be no more pointing the finger at the EU. Government must deliver an industrial strategy for decent work, with investment in jobs and green industries in parts of the country that need it most. “Ministers must also urgently build on this deal to overcome the barriers to trade and higher production costs many sectors will face which puts jobs at risk. And we will not accept a race to the bottom on rights.”Unity Within Britain Needed
As this conversation develops, it will bring the various parts of Britain together. In particular, it will help to strengthen Scotland’s place within the union. Scottish workers will find that they have more pressing matters of rebuilding the country than wasting time talking about independence, a topic designed to separate them from their sisters and brothers in the rest of Britain.
Rebuild Britain's Manufacturing Industry
by Geoff Carter
