Tilting at North Sea Windmills

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Tilting at North Sea Windmills

John Gartside • 4 December 2022

Why DEFRA is betraying our fishermen

The Department for Saving the Planet from the natural phenomenon of Climate Change has caused to be put in place forests of windmills whose alleged purpose is to generate electricity whilst preventing the Earth planet from becoming overheated, but which are far more effective at preventing fishermen towing their trawls in a straight line. The energy which the windmills produce is heavily subsidised by consumers and is non-dispatchable and therefore inherently of low value.

Meanwhile another government department, Defra, the natural enemy of farming and fishing, allocates quotas to our fishermen but for specific species of fish only. Consequently, our fishermen can find themselves using very expensive diesel which the government has disallowed from receiving subsidies unlike for other constituencies, to sail to an area where their quota fish can be found having passed through seas teaming with fish, but the ‘wrong’ species. Were they to net wrong fish, they would be heavily fined if they tried to land them or even worse if they tipped them over the side.

Then there are the wildlife parks, the Serengeti of the North Sea or ‘Marine Protected Areas’ where fish can go about their daily lives being eaten by natural predators which obviously makes the fish very happy indeed and minded; to vote Tory, however, the fishermen whose livelihoods are seriously curtailed by Defra idiocy, less so.

Much of the fish which our fishermen catch are not landed here but are sold to continental trawlermen because the market for fish in the UK is comparatively poor. The supermarkets which forced the closure of most independent traders and are no friends of our primary food producers have decided to offer a plethora of produce as long as it can be packaged and stacked on shelves or put in freezer, with few offering fresh fish in contrast to the supermarkets on the continent.

We are constantly being hectored about eating less meat, but humankind is an omnivorous species, and we are told fish is good for our health: what are we waiting for? The government of course should be actively assisting our fishermen and actively dealing with the supermarkets who use an effective monopoly to sell what they want to sell not what people need or want to buy.

The UK Independence Party supports our fishermen and the consumers’ right to choose.

John Gartside

UK Independence Party- Fishing Spokesman

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