STARMER’S EU FISH SURRENDER – Could cost up to £6bn despite the EU taking nearly £500m of landings from UK waters in one year
Sir Keir Starmer has surrendered leverage in future European Union negotiations with his 12-year fishing rights deal, peers have warned.
A report by the House of Lords’ European affairs committee said the Prime Minister’s reset deal with Brussels risked handing the bloc the upper hand in energy talks.
Under the deal struck by Labour in May, EU fishermen will get access to British waters until 2038 and risks handing the EU up to £6bn of British fish, official data suggest. However, the energy chapter, which grants Britain access to the EU’s electricity market, as agreed in Boris Johnson’s Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA), will remain negotiated on an annual basis.
Brussels had tied fishing rights negotiations to access to the energy market by ensuring both deals had the same expiration date. But when the EU ensured 12 years of fishing rights, London did not secure a longer term for energy. A truly massive error, unfairly granting the EU access to our fish, without a reciprocal Energy deal on prices.
“The new arrangements provide a degree of political comfort that the TCA energy title will continue to apply beyond 2027, notwithstanding the uncertainty created by the need for formal annual renewal,” the Lords report said. Once again, Britain is at the mercy of the French negotiating team.
“We ask the Government to set out the rationale behind these arrangements and to set out its degree of confidence that the energy provisions will not be used as leverage by the EU in future,” its authors added.
When Mr Johnson, the former prime minister, and Lord Frost, his Brexit negotiator, negotiated the TCA, it was envisaged that separate deals on fishing rights and energy access would be leveraged against each other.
Shortly after it was agreed, France repeatedly threatened to cut Britain out of the bloc’s electricity and energy markets in a row over post-Brexit access to British waters.
In its wide-ranging report, the Lords committee assessed that there had been winners and losers on both sides of Sir Keir’s reset deal.
Fishermen interviewed by the committee said domestic vessels would suffer as a result of guaranteeing EU boats 12 years of access to British waters.
