Hmm, this article doesn't really spell out the balance. So, <i>why</i> is it a disgrace? because brits like Arctic fish? Also, "UK fleets landed fish worth £32m in Norwegian waters" - how much (£m) in fish where landed in UK waters by foreign boats as part of the quota trade?<p>The quote about how terrible this is comes from "UK Fisheries chief executive Jane Sandell", but later is reveals Sandell owns a business that "catches around 10% of all the fish sold in the UK's chip shops" which I assume to be those arctic fish - another [1]article reveals:<p><pre><code> One trawler, which catches 10% of fish sold in chip shops, will be tied up for a year following the collapse in talks.
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That trawler appears to be owned by Sandells company:<p><pre><code> her firm having only 40% of the fishing opportunities of previous years
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Unless the entire British fishing industry fishes exclusively outside British waters, it seems a pretty big bias to proclaim the opinion of someone with such a massive stake in access to Norwegian fish.<p>And here's another [2]article revealing a little of the British water side:<p><pre><code> £160m worth of England's fishing quota is in the hands of vessels owned by companies based in Iceland, Spain and the Netherlands
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Well, maybe we should freely trade our respective fishes, rather than have UK based trawlers travel all the way to the Arctic? There might even be a reduced emissions benefit somewhere in there.<p>Edit:<p>Here's a site some more answers:<p><a href="https://ukfisheries.net/about-distant-fishing/qsas" rel="nofollow">https://ukfisheries.net/about-distant-fishing/qsas</a><p>I was unsatisfied to the answer about why cod fishing isn't done locally, so here's an interesting [3]article:<p><pre><code> In 2019, 70% of the UK’s seafood was exported to Europe and Asia with an end value of over $2bn. .. over 90% of the cod consumed by the UK’s domestic market is imported
cod from Iceland, the largest importer into the UK, is 38% more expensive than cod exported from the UK.
the UK is exporting an unsustainable cod catch because British waters have been overfished for decades
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So, why not fix this by matching tariff on imported cod with tariffs on exported seafood (if necessary), and then learn to either fish sustainably, or learn how to trade with Norway and live with the price of (good) fish.<p>What I <i>do</i> find strange, is how Britain apparently lacks the fishing industry capable of fishing their own waters, but cod is overfished in them, very selective. But again, why isn't this fixed in trade rather than quotas?<p>[1] <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-56940914" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-56940914</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/52420116" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/52420116</a><p>[3] <a href="https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2020/11/16/Fishy-business-The-UK-cod-industry-is-in-a-truly-unsustainable-position" rel="nofollow">https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2020/11/16/Fishy-busin...</a>