‘The French have had more UK fishing licences than all continental EU countries COMBINED – but that won’t stop Macron’
Pictured above: Sir Keir Starmer spending time with Emmanuel Macron at Chequers
Two weeks today, Sir Keir Starmer’s much-vaunted ‘Great EU Reset’ summit will start. Whilst there are will be several topics on the agenda, the one which concerns us here is fishing. It appears once again inevitable that fishing will be used as a bargaining chip in relation to other issues on which it is easier to put a high value.
The current deal with the EU does not run out until the end of June next year, as most readers know, but the big concern is that a broad framework will be insisted upon by the EU at the summit in 14 days’ time, which it will be very hard – if not impossible – to row back from when the details of the full deal are negotiated over the next 12 months.
A good example of this is the duration of any deal negotiated. The EU’s opening position was apparently a five-year deal. The UK should insist on annual deals, as is done in the rest of the world. Our prediction is that the PM will agree in principle to a two or three year deal.
With this in mind, the UK Fisheries Campaign is working hard to ensure the public, the media, and our politicians are all aware of what is at stake.
In our first report on this growing crisis in Anglo-French relations (Part Ia) we showed how in 2021 President Macron’s government started threatening the UK over fishing rights, claiming the UK was not issuing licences when the opposite was the case. He was also attempting to persuade all other EU countries to join him.
Back in September 2021, the numbers of licences granted were as we published. Before we carry on with that story, we will briefly jump ahead to the present day to show the current level of licensing in 2025.
Licences currently – in the Spring of 2025
UK licences given to the French compared to other EU countries’ fishing fleets, May 2025
- France has been given UK licences which total more than the next 3 EU countries combined
- The French now have over 2½ times Spain’s number
- They have almost five times as many UK fishing licences as the Dutch
- They have nearly eight times as many as the Danish
- Almost 12 times as many as the Belgians
- And over 18 times as many as the Germans
© The UK Fisheries Campaign 2025
As can be seen, the numbers of licences per EU country has changed. We predicted this would happen as a result of the UK Government allowing EU companies to buy up UK boats (with their quotas) and French owners who had never really fished in UK waters (but now had licences to do so as a result of the UK Government’s leniency) selling their boats.
We can also look at the French fleet from a different perspective
The total tonnage of the French fishing fleet
- France has UK licences for boats with five times the tonnage of the Royal Navy’s coastal & offshore fleet
- France’s fishing fleet, by tonnage, is bigger than all the Royal Navy’s Destroyers combined
- It is bigger than all the Royal Navy’s Frigates combined
© The UK Fisheries Campaign 2025
Going back to October 2021…
At this point in 2021 only a tiny fraction of the total of licence applications had not yet been approved. This was because the handful of French vessels involved were unable to give any proof that they had been fishing in UK waters pre-Brexit, despite the Government granting them an extension to do so. Indeed, the Government has been even more generous. Nine months after Brexit, the Marine Management Organisation said that it would continue to consider applications.
What is the relevance of all of this to Sir Keir Starmer today?
At this point in our story, the French had been sabre-rattling but few were prepared for what was about to come. In 2021 feelings in the EU were still running very high over the apparent and very public slight that had been handed to the EU when the great British public were finally asked if they wished to remain a member of the bloc and politely declined.
The loss of face and of reputation – to say nothing of the loss of the UK’s billions in annual subsidies which allowed the EU to operate as it did – were felt very deeply across the Channel. Perhaps this was nowhere felt more strongly than amongst the French ruling classes. For decades they had seen their old adversary humbled and mistreated on a regular basis by the majority of the EU members. At the same time, France had been enjoying Top Table status with Germany as de facto rulers of ‘Europe’.
Out of nowhere it seemed, (given that ‘le tout Europe’ believed as the British Establishment did that the Referendum could not possibly be lost), the UK was no longer going to be a second-class bit-player in the soap opera that Brussels had become.
There are some interesting parallels and differences between the events
In 2021 President Macron was able to create a fantastical story of grievance that the UK was somehow behaving improperly over licences for French boats. On this very flimsy basis he was able to create a feeling of an injustice being done. Even then, the evidence he could produce was so inconsequential he struggled to create any sense of ‘EU unity’ amongst other EU leaders, but it played well at home.
In 2025 he has no such grounds and his tactic is to remind the other 26 that they have some powerful levers to pull, including the defence treaty Sir Keir seemingly wants, as well as other vital issues such as the shared energy deal which expires on the same day as the fishing deal.
With his popularity in France at rock-bottom, the economy on ever-shakier ground, and the possibility of losing his fourth Prime Minister in less than two years, picking a common foe for the French people to unite in opposing will deflect attention away from domestic troubles and play to the popular house.
COMING UP….
In the next instalment of this story we take readers through the month of October 2021, leading up to one of the most extraordinary diplomatic explosions in the history of French foreign diplomacy.
An earthquake of that magnitude will be difficult for Macron to achieve this time, but if Sir Keir Starmer and his team are not fully aware and prepared after what happened last time then the results of this upcoming Summit could be disastrous on a great many levels.
