What the Fishermen Got

On the afternoon of 15 June 2016, about thirty-five fishing boats came up the Thames towards Westminster with Nigel Farage aboard, timed to arrive during Prime Minister's Questions. Bob Geldof hired a pleasure cruiser, went out to meet them, and played Dobie Gray at the flotilla through a sound system considerably better than the one Farage was using. Somebody on one of the fishing boats turned a hose on him. A reporter at the scene summarised the position as Farage having more boats and Geldof having a better speaker.

It was, by common consent, ridiculous. It was also the single most memorable image of the referendum campaign, and it worked, because everybody understands a boat and a fish and a line on a map in a way that nobody understands a rule of origin.

The industry those thirty-five boats were speaking for lands a little over a billion pounds of fish in a good year, in a country whose economy is worth well over two trillion. The House of Commons Library puts fishing and aquaculture at around three hundredths of one per cent of national output, while warning that the figure is volatile and gets revised.

Ten years on there are numbers for all of it. Not projections. Numbers, published by the British government, about what the fishing fleet actually received and what it actually cost. They do not say what either side of that argument said they would.

The industry on the boats

The fleet was already going, long before any of this.

In 1994 there were 10,827 fishing vessels registered in the United Kingdom. In 2024 there were 5,232, a fall of 52 per cent. The engine power of the fleet is down 40 per cent over the same three decades and its total tonnage is down 28 per cent since records of that began in 1996. None of this is Brexit. Most of it happened while Britain was a member, and a good deal of it was the Common Fisheries Policy working exactly as its critics said it did, along with decommissioning schemes, stock collapse, consolidation and fuel prices.

The fleet is also small in a way that is easy to miss. Seventy nine per cent of British fishing vessels are under ten metres long. These are boats with one or two men on them working a few miles out, not factory ships.

So the argument was never really about an industry. It was about the coastal towns where those boats tie up, which have not had a good half century, and about the fact that a foreign trawler working inside your own waters is a thing you can stand on the harbour wall and point at.

What the deal actually gave them

The Trade and Cooperation Agreement that took effect on 1 January 2021 set up a transitional arrangement, the adjustment period, running five and a half years to 30 June 2026. Over that period 25 per cent of the value of the European Union's existing quota in British waters was to be handed to the British fleet, stock by stock, with the annual totals negotiated each year.

That happened. A lot of commentary on this subject has been written as though the fishermen got nothing at all, and that is simply wrong.

The government's own assessment of the 2026 negotiations puts British fishing opportunities from the three main negotiating forums at about 612,000 tonnes, worth roughly £964 million. It then does the counterfactual: had the United Kingdom still been a member state, its share in 2026 would have come to an estimated 528,000 tonnes worth £833 million.

The difference is about 84,000 tonnes and roughly £131 million a year.

That is a real gain and it belongs in the ledger. It is also, set against a national economy of well over two trillion pounds, an amount that would not register in a Budget.

What it cost them to sell it

British fishing is an export business, and it always has been, because the country does not eat what its own boats catch. Mackerel is the single biggest thing the fleet lands, 233,000 tonnes in 2024, 31 per cent of the entire British catch, and 48 per cent of it was landed straight into foreign ports without touching Britain at all. Meanwhile the country imported 633,000 tonnes of fish worth £3.5 billion and exported 380,000 tonnes worth £2 billion, running a seafood trade deficit of £1.4 billion.

So the thing the flotilla was demanding, more fish out of British water, only turns into money if the fish can cross a border afterwards.

From 1 January 2021 every one of those export consignments needed paperwork that had not existed the day before: a customs declaration, a catch certificate, and an export health certificate signed off by a qualified person. For a lorry carrying a mixed load from several boats, that is a separate certificate for each consignment on board, and the cargo is alive or a few days from not being worth anything.

Within a fortnight the government announced a £23 million Seafood Disruption Support Scheme, paying up to £100,000 a business against losses caused by export delays. Read the scheme documents and the shape of the problem is clear enough: it covered losses incurred between 1 and 31 January 2021, and it closed to applications on 28 February. It was written for a month.

The harder blow landed in February. On 3 February 2021 the European Commission told member states that live bivalve molluscs from British class B waters, meaning mussels, oysters, clams and cockles from most of Wales and the south west of England, could not be imported into the EU for purification. Class A waters could continue. In practice a trade that had run for decades stopped.

The British government's objection to this was reasonable and is on the record. The Commission had written to Britain in September 2019 confirming that the trade could continue, and then reversed itself after the transition period ended. The Environment Secretary told the Commons on 8 February that bringing an end to a traditional and valuable trade in this way was unacceptable.

Both things are true at once, which is the part that usually gets left out. The fleet was given more fish. The fleet was given a harder time selling fish. Nobody who put a boat on the Thames was told about the second one.

The year the clock ran out

The adjustment period was the whole design. Twenty five per cent of EU quota value would move across, and then, from July 2026, access to British waters would be negotiated annually, which was the point: leverage, applied every year, in a room.

That is not what happened.

At a summit in London on 19 May 2025 the two sides reached a political agreement, formalised by the Specialised Committee on Fisheries on 20 June, granting full reciprocal access to each other's waters, for quota and non-quota stocks alike, until 30 June 2038. Twelve years of it, agreed in one go, in exchange for progress on other parts of the relationship.

Elspeth Macdonald, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation, called it "a horror show for Scottish fishermen, far worse than Boris Johnson's botched Brexit agreement", and said the government had made the deal on the backs of fishermen and coastal communities in order to secure other objectives. She named three prime ministers who in her view had sold the industry out: Edward Heath, Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer. Two of them are Conservatives and one is Labour, which tells you roughly how the industry sees the political class as a whole.

Meanwhile the fish themselves are doing what fish do. Britain's total fishing opportunities for 2026 come to about 636,000 tonnes worth £1.06 billion, which is 135,000 tonnes and £136 million down on 2025, falls of 18 per cent and 12 per cent. That is mostly stock science and the coastal states negotiations rather than anything to do with Brussels. The uplift is still there underneath it. The sea is just having a worse year.

Back at the quay

The 2024 figures were, in isolation, decent. British vessels landed 745,000 tonnes worth £1.16 billion, up 4 per cent by weight and 5 per cent by value on the year before.

They landed it into an industry with half the boats it had thirty years ago, in towns that voted for the flotilla and got a quota uplift worth about the price of a medium sized road scheme, and a certificate regime, and twelve more years of French and Dutch and Belgian trawlers working the same water.

BM 218 is a beam trawler tied up at Brixham, one of about four thousand British boats under ten metres and one of the five thousand two hundred left. Her nets are furled and there are fish boxes stacked on the quay behind her. She has been at that wall through all of it, and what changed for her, in the end, is the paperwork she needs before her catch can go on a lorry to Boulogne.

Sources

• GOV.UK, "Economic outcomes of annual negotiations for UK fishing opportunities in 2026" (about 612,000 tonnes worth £964 million from the three negotiating forums and roughly 636,000 tonnes worth £1.06 billion in total; the estimated 528,000 tonnes worth £833 million had the UK remained a member state, and the resulting uplift of about £131 million; and the falls of 135,000 tonnes and £136 million against 2025).
• GOV.UK, "UK Sea Fisheries Annual Statistics Report 2024" (5,232 registered vessels in 2024 against 10,827 in 1994, a fall of 52 per cent; engine power down 40 per cent and gross tonnage down 28 per cent; 79 per cent of the fleet under ten metres; landings of 745,000 tonnes worth £1.16 billion, up 4 per cent and 5 per cent on 2023; imports of 633,000 tonnes worth £3.5 billion against exports of 380,000 tonnes worth £2 billion and a seafood trade deficit of £1.4 billion; and mackerel at 233,000 tonnes being 31 per cent of the UK catch with 48 per cent of it landed abroad).
• House of Commons Library, "UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement: Fisheries" (the transfer of 25 per cent of existing EU quota value in UK waters over a five and a half year adjustment period to 30 June 2026, and the move to annual negotiations afterwards).
• House of Commons Library, "UK Fisheries Statistics" (fishing and aquaculture accounting for around 0.03 per cent of total UK economic output, and the briefing's own caution that these figures are volatile and subject to revision).
• European Commission, Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, "The EU and UK formalise agreement on full reciprocal access to waters until 2038" (the Specialised Committee on Fisheries decision of 20 June 2025 following the political agreement ahead of the London summit of 19 May 2025, covering exclusive economic zones and territorial waters for quota and non-quota stocks until 30 June 2038).
• GOV.UK, "£23 million Seafood Disruption Support Scheme now open" (the scheme covering up to £100,000 a business for losses caused by export delays between 1 and 31 January 2021, closing to applications on 28 February 2021).
• GOV.UK, "UK shellfish exports: Environment Secretary's Commons statement, 8 February 2021" (the Commission's instruction of 3 February 2021 that live bivalve molluscs from class B waters could not be imported for purification while class A exports continued; the Commission's written advice of September 2019 that the trade could continue; and the Secretary of State's description of ending the trade as unacceptable).
• New Statesman, "Farage's flotilla: no really, the Brexit campaign is actually sailing up the Thames in boats" (roughly thirty-five fishing vessels, the timing against Prime Minister's Questions, Geldof's counter-protest and sound system, and the hose).
• Ross-shire Journal, "New UK-EU deal branded 'horror show' by Scottish fishermen" (Elspeth Macdonald's statement for the Scottish Fishermen's Federation, including the comparison with the 2020 agreement and the naming of Edward Heath, Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer).