France fishing row: How a small Scottish scallop trawler reignited a major post-Brexit diplomatic feud

Cornelis detention at Le Harve just the latest chapter in long-running tensions along English Channel

Britain and France once again find themselves at loggerheads over post-Brexit fishing rights in the English Channel.

The latest installment of the feud kicked off on Wednesday when French maritime authorities seized a Scottish scallop trawler, the Cornelis-Gert Jan, and detained it at the port of Le Harve in Normandy, accusing it of fishing without a licence and fining a second boat for obstructing vessel checks.

The trawler is owned by Macduff Shellfish out of Dumfries and Andrew Brown, the company’s director of sustainability and public affairs, responded by saying: “It appears our vessel has been caught up in the ongoing dispute between the UK and France on the implementation of the Brexit Fishing Agreement.

France fishing row - latest: UK warns it will retaliate if sanctions imposed as post-Brexit tensions mount

“We are looking to the UK government to defend the rights of the UK fishing fleet and ensure that the fishing rights provided under the Brexit Fishing Agreement are fully respected by the EU.

“We will vigorously defend ourselves against any claims.”

The captain has now been summoned to a French court and could face a fine.

While Boris Johnson’s Cabinet were scrambling to respond to the episode, France’s European affairs minister, Clement Beaune, appeared on the domestic news channel CNews and said: “We have been extremely patient... our fishermen have been extremely responsible... And so, from November 2, it’s over: we will engage in dialogue if the British want to, but we are taking retaliatory measures.

“Now we need to speak the language of force because, unfortunately, that seems to be the only thing this British government understands.”

His deadline would mean UK boats being banned from French ports from Tuesday and rigorous vessel inspections enforced if licensing issues are not resolved, with France also threatening to disrupt power supply to the Channel Islands out of spite.

French fishermen have said they feel deceived by the UK government for failing to grant them enough post-Brexit fishing licences to access British waters.

Mr Beaune’s colleague, maritime minister Annick Girardin, ramped up the rhetoric by telling domestic radio programme RTL Matin that the UK’s “failure to comply” with the terms of the Brexit deal was “unacceptable”.

“It’s not war, it’s a fight,” she said. “The French and the fishermen have rights. An agreement was signed. We must enforce this agreement. We have fishing rights, we must defend them and we will defend them.”

Responding in the House of Commons, environment secretary George Eustice told MPs the UK would not “get into a retaliatory tit for tat on this kind of thing”, adding: “It’s important that everyone remains calm.”

He said there was no reason to be concerned about the welfare of the Cornelis crew (who remain in “good spirits”, according to Mr Brown) and that the vessel had been included on a list provided by the Marine Management Organisation to the EU, meaning it had been granted it a licence, adding: “We are seeing some reports that, for some reason, they were subsequently withdrawn from the list; it’s unclear why that might have been at the moment.”

Mr Eustice warned that French attempts to block their ports could breach international law and said the UK had licensed 98 per cent of EU vessels that have applied for access to its waters post-Brexit and that more are expected to be granted following “constructive” talks with the European Commission.

A UK government spokesperson reiterated the secretary’s stance, saying: “The proposed French actions are unjustified and do not appear to be compatible on the EU’s part with the Trade and Cooperation Agreement or wider international law.

“We regret the confrontational language that has been consistently used by the French government on this issue, which makes this situation no easier to resolve.”

Brexit minister Lord David Frost subsequently held a crisis meeting with senior cabinet colleagues over the issue on Thursday before the Foreign Office summoned French ambassador Catherine Colonna to Westminster for urgent talks on Friday.

Foreign secretary Liz Truss said Ms Colonna would be expected “to explain the disappointing and disproportionate threats made against the UK and Channel Islands”.

Before that could take place, Mr Eustice appeared on Sky News to say that the UK had done “nothing wrong” and expressed a wish to “defuse the situation”, only to then undermine that position by warning France that, should they impose arbitrary regulatory measures to the disadvantage of British fishing vessels, the UK would retaliate.

“Obviously if they do bring these into place, well two can play at that game. We obviously reserve the ability to respond in a proportionate way,” he said.

The British trawler being detained by French authorities docked at the port of Le Havre in western France (AP)

The last time all of this came to a head was back in May when a flotilla of around 60 French trawlers descended on Jersey after threatening to blockade the port of St Helier to stop goods arriving or leaving.

The UK government responded by sending two royal navy offshore patrol vessels, the HMS Severn and HMS Tamar, to the Channel Island as a precautionary measure after reacting angrily to another threat from Ms Girardin to cut off the island’s electricity supply.

Prior to that, tensions had last erupted during the “scallop wars” of late August 2018, when rocks, smoke bombs and other projectiles were thrown at English and Scottish vessels by French boats in the Bay of Seine off the coast of Normandy.

The skirmish was branded “clear piracy” by the Scottish White Fish Producers Association at the time, as the British boats were legally harvesting the fishing grounds when they came under attack.

And prior to that flashpoint, another clash took place 15 miles off the coast of Le Harve in October 2012 when 40 French boats cornered their British rivals, attempting to ram them and throwing stones and nets with a view to damaging their propellers and engines and even burning an English rugby shirt as an act of provocation.

Crabs were the point of contention during the Cherbourg dispute of late March and early April 1993 when the neighbours again exchanged angry words over rival jurisdictions in the Channel Islands.

But back in the 1950s and 1970s, Britain’s ocean-going enemy was not France but Iceland in what became known as the “cod wars”, which was only slightly less tense than the age of mutually-assured destruction with which it coincided, and concerned the right to fish for cod and whitefish in the north Atlantic.