Showing posts with label CBC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CBC. Show all posts

Monday 2 April 2018

One year away from the divorce court.




 The referendum caused the country, counties, family, friends and workmates to vote a simple 'Yes' or "No' on an issue with so many facets and so many unknowns that neither Leave or Remain could provide straightforward answers. Like an arranged marriage without the getting to know, date, engagement and then a wedding to tie up the nuptials the UK is now headed off to the divorce court hoping to keep at least 50% of what it had in the marriage. 

Fishing is undoubtedly one of the UK's chattels that on paper could do without.  Looked at purely on the basis of financial value,  many decent sized companies employ more people and produce more wealth than the fishing industry in its entirety.

Look at the industry as a part of the UK's maritime, cultural and national identity and its value - like the legacy of the aristocracy, great buildings and monuments built on the back of an empire - its value is not so easy to calculate.

Margaret Evans from CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company) recently paid Nelwyn a visit as the country was only days away from marking the countdown with 365 days to go to the divorce date.

She found herself exploring the irony that despite being in a region that has received grants amounting to 10% of the entire EU budget many wanted a divorce that would cut themselves off from that financial support in the future.

"More than two decades later, with Britain's official exit date from the European Union now just under a year away, Cornish fishermen are on the verge of escaping what many of them call the ill-founded and tyrannical rule of the EU's Common Fisheries Policy (CFP)."
"Not by our local boats, but because we're being given scraps by Brussels, and we've seen the boats from France and Belgium come and take what they can take out of our own waters."
The EU's complicated manner of deciding fish quotas for its members sees nearly 60 per cent of the fish caught in the waters around Britain being landed by boats from other EU countries. 
Cornish fishermen, for example, are limited to eight per cent of the cod quota in their own waters, while the French can catch 73 per cent."



ABOUT THE AUTHOR



Margaret Evans
Europe correspondent
Margaret Evans is a correspondent based in the CBC News London bureau. A veteran conflict reporter, Evans has covered civil wars and strife in Angola, Chad and Sudan, as well as the myriad battlefields of the Middle East.