More Brexit fallout?
intercst
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That was interesting. I don’t quite see the Brexit connection. It sounded like overfishing the waters around Britain was the start of the problem compounded now by other issues: increasing costs for ingredients, labor, utilities; and changing tastes.
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I think it’s that the British industry traditionally depends on trade with EU. To continue after Brexit, deal must be made w EU. That has been delayed. So cannot fish in EU waters or must pay tariffs.
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It’s complex. As far as Brexit - overpromise, underdeliver -
The Conservative Cabinet Minister Michael Gove, whose father ran a fishing company in Scotland, held up the industry as Brexit’s raison d’être. A few days before the vote, Nigel Farage — a prime mover of the effort to Leave — led a flotilla of fishing boats displaying anti-EU banners up the River Thames, where he faced off against a flotilla of counter-protesters led by the aging rockstar Bob Geldof. More than nine in 10 fishermen intended to vote Leave in June 2016, believing they were on the verge of taking back control of U.K. waters.
The reality has proved somewhat more complex. The industry was in flux in January 2021, the first month after the Brexit transition period ended. Facing new checks and paperwork, U.K. seafood exports to the EU — Britain’s biggest trading market — fell 83 percent. Processors continue to suffer labor shortages, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and stricter immigration rules. Industry figures claim 15,000 tons of fish remained in the sea last year because of a lack of staff available to fillet.
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So do I have this right?
The British fishing industry was geared up before Brexit to sell most of its catch to European markets. After Brexit those markets were mostly closed. The UK is not a large enough market to support the fishing industry so it collapsed; which caused a shortage in product, and that is driving up prices. The price increase is forcing customers to other foods, and that is driving chippies out of business.
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The irony (which we in the US have yet to experience to a great extent with tariffs) is that UK fishermen overwhelmingly voted for Brexit, something on the order of 90% +. Makes you wonder what they thought would happen. No more regulations? Easy access to European markets? They all apparently thought that regulatory promises outweighed political expediency. Oh well, live and learn (and lose your job).
Pete
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There’s a lot of that going around.
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No wondering about it; they bought Boris’ idiocy Hook Line Sinker Boat Market. Why? Ask the idiot USAians who overwhelmingly STILL think of a certain playboy as a “business genius”.
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And a stable one at that…
Pete
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Yes, in economics constant change is the norm. Those who adapt survive. The rest gripe.
Here in the UK we are changing our eating habits:
The Italian import has become a staple of UK dining to rival fish and chips
I thought it would be curry.
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Fish and chips shops……if you define them as selling fish, chips, mushy peas and a few pickles (eggs, onions, gherkin) started to disappear long before Brexit. As pretty much the sole (geddit) supplier of high street fast food/takeaway, it was starting even before we came to the US in the mid 1980s…..and certainly a few years later when we returned for visits shops were actually closing down in my hometown.
In the 1950’s and 60s, when I was growing up there were very few fast food joints in a good many small towns in England. I recall the arrival of a Wimpy Bar in town……amid great fanfare announcing the introduction of an American style burger eatery……in the mid 1960s. I think pizza places started to invade a few years later. Now, walk down any high street and you’ll see much the same plethora of eateries as in the US…..along with boarded up store fronts etc.
Chip shops are no longer the cheap eats they used to be…..and no longer sell just fish, chips, mushy peas etc. They’re oftentimes indistinguishable from an Indian takeaway selling curry and chips and whatnot.
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What? No more Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips? Oh the travesty!
JimA
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