Throughout the Brexit process, Westminster Tory governments have set up Scotland’s fishing communities as a bargaining chip in their Brexit negotiations.
Now, it’s become clearer than ever that Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal is a complete sell-out.
The Brexit fishing sell-out
From the start, the UK government has set up Scotland’s fisheries as a bargaining chip in the Brexit negotiations – proving that just as Edward Heath and Margaret Thatcher, Boris Johnson’s Tories see our fishing communities as simply “expendable”.
The Scottish Tories said they would vote against any Brexit deal that didn’t restore “complete control and full sovereignty” of Scotland’s waters.
It’s now beyond doubt that Brexit doesn’t even come close to delivering that.
New Scottish Government analysis reveals that far from having, as promised, ‘substantial increased opportunities in the future’, the Scottish fishing industry will have access to fewer valuable fish stocks (such as cod, whiting and haddock) than under the CFP arrangements – even at the end of the five and half year phase-in period.
Despite all that, the Scottish Tories are now enthusiastically backing the Brexit deal with a fishing arrangement that they themselves, in 2018, called a “betrayal of Scotland”.
Yet again, Douglas Ross and his MPs have broken their promises to Scotland’s fishing communities, only to side with Boris Johnson at any cost.
