Cod save our gracious bream… fish fight reveals Brexit’s hooks
London — A Brexit trade deal may be announced soon, or it might not. But it’s in many ways fitting that fishing rights are seen as the final hurdle to be cleared. This one policy area — complex, emotive and wrapped in historical rights and grievances — encapsulates both what’s so infuriating about the EU in the eyes of many Britons and the ineluctable realities of economic interdependence.
What surprises most people is how small the economic stakes are. While about $1.5bn in fish is sold each way annually, fisheries account for just 0.12% of the UK economy and employ only 24,000 workers. It’s a sardine-sized share of the EU’s economy too. A failure to secure a trade deal because of fish would probably indicate that one party wanted to kill the whole process anyway. ..
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