Led by the BBC, Britain’s media last week gave ample coverage to the chaos inflicted on cross-Channel traffic by the French fishermen who for several days closed the ports of Calais, Boulogne and Dunkirk. The fishermen’s complaint, we were told, centred on the further drastic cuts in EU cod quotas which – since by April they had caught all the cod they are allowed for the year – were forcing them to dump more fish than ever dead back into the sea and making it impossible for them to earn a living. What our media (apart from Fishing News) did not report was that another central issue in the French protests, as could be seen from many of their banners, was the shocking treatment of the two Northern Irish fishermen, Charlie McBride and his son Charles, imprisoned a few weeks back for their pathetic efforts to pay off the crippling £385,000 fines imposed on them for falsifying their documentation in a bid to get round EU quotas. The two McBrides had seen all their assets confiscated by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) under the Proceeds of Crime Act (designed to recover money from drug dealers and international criminal gangs), including their homes and their boat, the Arcane. When, to raise money to pay their fines, the two men remortgaged their homes, this too was seized by Soca and they were consigned to Walton prison in Liverpool for “contempt of court”. Although in Britain this remarkable story was reported only by Fishing News and this column, it stunned the French fishermen who, brandishing placards reading “Justice pour l’Arcane II”, see it as a dire warning of the ruthless methods now being used to enforce EU law on Europe’s fishing communities. “This is frightening,” as French fishermen’s leaders told the French press. ““e are shocked at the British court’s decision to gaol the two fishermen, treating them worse than drug dealers, and all for cod!” What particularly irks the fishermen is that, contrary to the controversial findings of the scientists on whom Brussels relies for its data on fish stocks, cod are still so abundant in the eastern Channel that it is almost impossible to avoid catching them. As one French skipper put it, “Whether you are Irish, British or French, we are all getting the same kamikaze treatment from the European Commission, which treats the sea as though it were an aquarium plugged into a computer.” The response of the French government has been to try to buy off their fishermen’s anger by offering them a 4 million euro subsidy if they will agree to suspend fishing, The British Government’s response is first to steal everything our fishermen own and then put them in gaol.French fishermen speak out against the 'frightening' imprisonment of British comrades
The French see the treatment of the McBrides as a dire warning of the way EU law will be enforced in Europe's fishing communities, says Christopher Booker.
Sunday, 19 April 2009
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