The government has hit back at criticism over fishing rights in a leaked document on Britain’s post-Brexit relationship, saying UK negotiators had secured an agreement that the EU’s future access to British waters would not be linked to trade. The draft political declaration said the two sides should establish a new fisheries agreement, ideally by 1 July 2020, and the UK will become an “independent coastal state”. Government sources said it was explicit that a fisheries deal would be negotiated separately to any free-trade agreement. However, this does not rule out EU member states getting access to UK fishing waters in the future, but access will be negotiated separately to trade policy. The Scottish Conservative MP Ross Thomson and the Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, had both criticised the draft declaration for tying fishing access to the future trade deal, which the government said was not correct. Thompson tweeted on Thursday: “This means sovereignty over our waters sacrificed for a trade deal. That is unacceptable. We must be a normal independent coastal state like Norway.” Sheryll Murray, the Tory MP for South East Cornwall, said it was “the common fisheries policy in all but name”. A government spokeswoman said: “Norway has a fisheries agreement with the EU and the political declaration allows for a similar arrangement. “This agreement would set a framework for annual agreements on access and fishing opportunities, just like Norway. The EU wanted guaranteed access to UK waters but did not secure it. The UK’s red lines have been protected.” The language in the document is understood to have appeased the Scotland secretary, David Mundell, who had recently been on the verge of quitting should the declaration have promised to link access to fishing with the final trade deal terms. The government also said the UK had prevented the EU from inserting a clause that said both sides would maintain “existing reciprocal access to fishing waters and resources”. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said this had been explicitly rejected and there was no commitment in the political declaration to maintaining existing access. Sturgeon condemned the detail in the leaked political declaration as “yet another Tory sellout of Scotland’s fishermen”. Asked about the declaration during first minister’s questions on Thursday, she referred to the paragraph that said “within the context of the overall economic partnership, the parties should cooperate on inter alia access to waters and quota shares”. Sturgeon contrasted this with a letter written to Theresa May last week by her 13 Scottish Conservative MPs, which warned: “Access and quota shares cannot be included in the future economic partnership, allowing the UK to become an independent coastal state both in principle and in practice.” Mundell tweeted in response that he would “not take lessons on standing up for fisherman from Nicola Sturgeon, who is committed to trapping them in the hated common fisheries policy”. “The PM has fiercely resisted the efforts of EU states to make an explicit link between access to our waters and access to markets. We will negotiate and decide, as an independent coastal state, on access and quota[s] on an annual basis, just like Norway and Iceland do now,” he said. The Scottish Tory MP Luke Graham said he was content with the wording. “What’s important now is that we keep up the pressure over the course of the next year to ensure this is not something that slips in the rest of the negotiations – because nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” he said. Henry Newman, the director of the thinktank Open Europe, said the government had “won an important victory with the acknowledgement that a future agreement on fishing will be separate from the overall trade agreement, albeit agreed within the same context”. Bertie Armstrong, the chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, said: “We know that several EU nations will not give up their attempts to link access with trade in order to retain absolute rights to fish around our coastline.” Armstrong added: “We will continue to seek assurances from the UK government that it will remain steadfast, and [we] will not rest until the future arrangements are signed, sealed and delivered, and we secure that critical control over access to our waters and who catches what stocks, where and when.” France, Spain, Belgium, Denmark and Portugal are among countries reported to be unhappy that the withdrawal agreement did not include such a guarantee on fishing rights. In a move likely to only provoke further anger among UK fishing communities, it is understood that France is lobbying for a hard-hitting side-declaration to be made at the leaders’ summit. A link between a continuation of the current level of access enjoyed by European fleets to British seas and the ability of UK importers to access the EU market place could be laid out in uncomfortably clear terms for Downing Street. The substance of such a statement by the 27 EU member states is expected to be discussed by leaders aides in Brussels on Friday, diplomats said.
The UK government has said it has agreed with the EU that the latter’s post-Brexit access to British waters will not be linked to trade. It disputed criticism from politicians including Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon that it had linked fishing with a prospective trade deal in a draft political declaration. The UK will become an independent coastal state in the intended fisheries agreement—aimed to be established by Thursday. The government reiterated that EU countries wanting access to its waters would negotiate a separate deal. It likened the plan to Norway's existing understanding with the EU.