With Starmer set to cave in on Monday, we show how ‘Bulldog Frost’ stood firm four years ago
Countdown – 48 hours before Macron’s deadline to start shutting down UK
Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2025 and the UK Fisheries Campaign 2025
Exposed: How the French flaunted their EU legal obligations… and the reaction of the EU27 and Commission
Meanwhile Brexit Britain’s ‘Bulldog Frost’ fired a broadside at France, rebutting their claims
With just days to go before the start of Sir Keir Starmer’s ‘Great EU Reset Summit’, today the UK Fisheries Campaign and GB News, in association with Facts4EU and CIBUK, continues its short series revealing just how close the UK came to a dramatic and total breakdown of normal and peaceful co-existence with its nearest neighbour, France, over a highly-charged five-day period in late 2021.
In Part II of this series we revealed the astonishing ultimatum from Macron’s government to the British. This was delivered on Twitter one evening and not through the usual diplomatic channels. Today we show how support started dripping away from the French and how the UK’s negotiator, Lord David Frost, responded to the situation.
At his ‘EU Reset’ summit in a week’s time, it’s all going to sound very familiar
Sir Keir is going to be facing what in effect will be a ransom demand instigated by the French under President Macron. He will be told he must agree to a completely unacceptable demand to allow the EU to continue accessing the UK’s sovereign waters almost as if they were their own.
And he will be told that he must agree to this for another period of several years.
Our sources in Brussels tell us that the EU will accept no less than a three-year deal. This means that EU vessels will still be allowed into UK waters for a period up to 14 years after the British people voted to leave the European Union.
Without this agreement, they will tell him, they will not discuss the other issues on the table on which he is anxious to secure new agreements.
This is all very reminiscent of 2021. At that time, as bizarre as it may seem, the extreme set of events put in motion by the French against the British people was over a handful of fishing licences.
The French President Emmanuel Macron was beginning to learn that the days of a timid, acquiescent, and appeasing United Kingdom of the type the EU encountered when Theresa May was Prime Minister were long gone.
In its place was a more assured, independent, and powerful country, acting with considerable restraint but prepared to stand up for its rights in the face of sustained aggression from its nearest neighbour and the empire of which that country is part.
French behaviour “very troubling and very problematic” – Lord Frost’s robust statement
Below we present in full the text of a statement issued on Saturday 30 Oct 2021 by Lord Frost, in response to the repeated French threats. This is what might be described as ‘robust response’.
“I would like to set out where things stand between the UK and the EU on fisheries and related issues, and why recent French rhetoric and threats, potentially leading to a breach by the EU of its Treaty obligations, are such an important matter for us.
“We have been in talks with the EU Commission for weeks on fisheries licensing and have granted 98% of applications. We do so in good faith and are fully delivering on our TCA obligation – to license vessels which can prove they have actually fished previously in our 6-12nm limit.
“That is why we are concerned and surprised by the comments seemingly made by [French PM] Jean Castex to [EU Commission President] Ursula von der Leyen that: ‘it is indispensable to show European public opinion that … it causes more damage to leave the EU than to stay in.’
“I hope this opinion is not held more widely across the EU. To see it expressed in this way is clearly very troubling and very problematic in the current context when we are trying to solve many highly sensitive issues, including on the Northern Ireland Protocol.
“This is all the more so as the threats made by France this week to our fishing industry, to energy supplies, and to future cooperation, eg through the Horizon research programme, unfortunately form part of a pattern that has persisted for much of this year.
“As I set out yesterday to [EU Commission Vice-President] Maros Sefcovic, these threats, if implemented on 2 November, would put the EU in breach of its obligations under our trade agreement. So we are actively considering launching dispute settlement proceedings as set out in Article 738 of the TCA.
“For our part we will continue to implement our obligations under the TCA. We will continue to talk constructively to try to resolve all the differences between us, and we urge the EU and France to step back from rhetoric and actions that make this more difficult.”
– Lord Frost, 5.00pm, Sat 30 Oct 2021
France was now clearly in breach of the EU’s own Treaty
The Treaty of the European Union is the pillar on which the EU empire is built. In stark contrast to the EU’s proclamations about treaties with the UK being set in stone and non-negotiable, the EU has renegotiated and replaced its own Treaty many times over the years.
Below we quote from the latest iteration of the EU Treaty. It contains a binding obligation regarding relations with countries neighbouring the EU.
Clause 1 of Article 8 of the Treaty of the European Union (TEU), signed by France
“The Union shall develop a special relationship with neighbouring countries, aiming to establish an area of prosperity and good neighbourliness, founded on the values of the Union and characterised by close and peaceful relations based on cooperation.”
Given that the guardian of the Treaty, the EU Commission, had made no claim against the UK in its management of fishing rights, and given that the UK had in fact been extremely generous in its interpretation of the clauses in regard to fishing licences, the behaviours, actions, and threats by the French were in clear violation of Article 8.
If Clause 1 of Article 8 of the TEU were to have been rewritten to reflect the French actions, it might have gone something like this:
“The Union shall develop an antagonistic relationship with neighbouring countries, aiming to establish an area of prosperity for itself and bad neighbourliness in general, ignoring the values of the Union and characterised by distant and hostile relations based on non-cooperation.”
Boris Johnson’s meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen
With just two days to go before Macron’s ultimatum deadline, on 30 October 2021 in Rome for the G20 Summit, Prime Minister Boris Johnson met European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and discussed COP26 before moving on to the actions of the French. Below is the statement issued by No.10 at the time.
“The Prime Minister also raised his concerns about the rhetoric from the French Government in recent days over the issue of fishing licences. The Prime Minster stressed that the French threats are completely unjustified and do not appear to be compatible with the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement or wider international law.
“The Prime Minister reiterated that the UK has granted 98% of licence applications from EU vessels to fish in the UK’s waters and is happy to consider any further evidence for the remaining 2%.”
Before we continue, a word about the UK Fisheries Campaign
At the UK Fisheries Campaign (UKFC) we are hard at work, highlighting the need to improve the lot of our fishermen and the coastal communities they operate from. We are working closely with elements of the media and with influential politicians to ensure that our fishing industry isn’t once again sold down the river.
“Ze clock eez ticking” – 24 hours until unilateral French action against Brexit Britain
‘Fishing dispute is not franco-british’, says Macron… So why was the EU silent, then?
Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2025
Macron started saying it was an EU matter, so what was the EU saying?
On 31 October in Rome, two days before his ultimatum deadline expired, French President Emmanuel Macron gave a press conference during which he was asked about the French dispute with the United Kingdom over licences for French boats to fish in UK territorial waters.
“Now the ball is in their court. If the British make no move, evidently the measures announced for 02 November will have to be implemented because they will have rejected the offer.”
– President Macron, Rome, 31 Oct 2021
To this point, Monsieur Macron had generally stayed away from the subject of fishing licences, leaving the attacks to his Minister for European Affairs, Clément Beaune, and his minister of the sea, Annick Girardin. Both of his ministers had used incendiary and undiplomatic language about the United Kingdom, as we have reported.
On the morning of 31 October, Clément Beaune replied to Lord Frost’s statement accusing him of ‘spin’.
Credit: Twitter 2021
Comments on this report, by former Secretary of State the Rt Hon Sir John Redwood
“The French conduct over fishing rights was outrageous.
The UK was more than generous in offering continuing rights to fish in our waters for any EU/ French boat that had been fishing before. The UK government made it all too easy for French boats to qualify with a minimum of proof of past fishing activity. They told the UK fishing industry it had to put up with the bulk of the catch still going to the EU for a long period of transition up to 2026.
“Despite this President Macron proposed a blockade of our vessels and even threatened cutting off electricity. The EU did not stand behind the unreasonable and belligerent French approach.
“Our fishing communities now expect us to take back control after the transition, and to ensure most of the fish caught in UK waters are at last landed in UK ports for processing. This is a huge opportunity to rebuild our industry.”
– The Rt Hon Sir John Redwood, 13 May 2025
Where was the EU Council on all of this?
One aspect of this dispute about which the French had said very little was the fact that fishing is part of the Withdrawal Agreement and the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA). These are both treaties between the EU and the UK, NOT between individual EU member countries and the UK.
France’s threats in the previous weeks had all been bilateral, acting as if France were a sovereign country rather than one bound by EU treaties and laws. The reason for France ‘going it alone’ was because it tried and failed to secure EU-wide agreement for action to be taken against the UK. President Macron’s last attempt was at the formal EU Summit of the 27 leaders, on 21 and 22 October 2021.
There were 29 items in the Adopted Conclusions of that last Summit and not one of these was about France’s fishing dispute with the United Kingdom. The reason for this was simple. President Macron was unable to persuade the other 26 EU leaders of France’s case against the United Kingdom. Sadly, the EU Council never publishes minutes of these meetings, so we cannot relay the details of President Macron’s attempts – we simply know he failed.
And why wasn’t the EU Commission acting against Brexit Britain?
When it comes to the EU Commission, it too had been silent on France’s increasing bellicosity towards the United Kingdom.
Never an organisation knowingly to pass up an opportunity to attack the UK, the EU Commission seems to have been reluctant to say anything substantive. No recent Commission statements, press releases, tweets from Ursula von der Leyen, nor from the official Commission Twitter account.
As with the EU Council, there was a reason for this. The UK had been fulfilling its obligations under the TCA and indeed had bent over backwards with the EU Commission officials to help French fishing vessels prove they fished on four individual days over a four year period.
Was Macron about to retreat?
One possible avenue of retreat for President Macron from his untenable position was to agree something with Ursula von der Leyen, placing the onus on the Commission to ‘mediate’. At home he may have been able to present this as showing how France is better off in the EU, if the Commission was able to find some ‘fudge’ with the UK.
Alternatively, should the EU have failed to stand with France in an active role, he could have moved his position towards a “France First” policy on matters he claimed were of major domestic importance. He might then have felt he could ‘bounce’ the 26 other EU leaders into backing a fellow EU member if this row escalated into a full-blown conflict with Brexit Britain.
Observations
This was ‘F-Day minus 1’.
The French government had issued very specific, hostile threats against the United Kingdom, which it said it would implement the next day unless the UK issued licences to the small number of French boats unable to prove they ever went near British waters over a four year period.
“The ball” was most emphatically not “in the UK’s court”, as Monsieur Macron claimed that evening in Rome. The ball had been in France’s court for so long that it would have been hard to find it in the long grass.
What had the French been doing with the ball in their court?
France, in common with all other EU countries with fishing fleets, knew that as part of the Trade and Co-operation Agreement their fishermen had to apply for UK licences and be ready to prove they had previously fished in UK waters. Given the laxity of the UK’s requirements for this proof, 98% of all licence applications from EU vessels had been issued.
The only changes in the UK’s position, based on our research, is that the UK had progressively made it easier and easier for French fishing vessels to claim they once fished in UK waters and should be allowed to do so going forward.
It should be stressed that the major French complaint related to boats which wanted to fish up to six nautical miles from the British coast. The UK had allowed this, where other countries around the world would not countenance it.
Was it now “put up or shut up time”?
“The clock is ticking,” as Michel Barnier was so fond of saying. The challenge to Monsieur Macron and his protégé Monsieur Beaune must now surely have been to “put up or shut up”. Let the French government provide public evidence to the EU Commission that the UK had acted in any way other than being as helpful as possible in allowing (what must in some cases be highly dubious claims) to be accepted.
The UK Fisheries Campaign knows the name of every single one of the 700+ French fishing vessels that had been licensed to fish in UK waters. We know their size and their tonnages. If a small and very under-funded organisation like ours has information like this, surely the French government could have produced detailed evidence of any injustice perpetrated by the UK government?
If not, then this really was all “un orage in a tasse de thé”, designed to increase President Macron’s popularity ahead of the elections in France the next April. And it would simply demonstrate to the world that France and the EU’s intention was always to punish the British people for voting to leave the whole sclerotic empire, as France’s Prime Minister indicated in his letter the previous week.
[ Sources: Elysée Palace; | G20 | Marine Management Organisation – UKSIA | French European Affairs Minister’s Twitter | EU Commission | EU Council ]
Coming up….
Victory! In the next part in this series we will reveal what must rank as the wort public surrender and humiliation in modern French history.
You do NOT want to miss this!
Shetland has to look after itself. The Faroese would not put up with whats going on. Autonomy now.