Meeting of the Parliament 17 May 2017
Out of touch though the SNP is with fishing communities, even it knows that rejoining the CFP would be hugely unpopular, so what does it do? It spins a line that, on the way in, it would renegotiate the CFP and somehow get a better and fairer deal. Not a chance. I have a letter from the EU fishing commissioner Karmenu Vella, which clearly states that any new country accessing the EU must accept the CFP in its entirety. There is no way that the SNP will be able to influence or opt out of that treaty—no ifs, no buts, no renegotiation.
Where does the SNP go from here? All that it can do now is smear and scaremonger and suggest that the UK Government will sell out the fishing industry during exit negotiations. The First Minister tried that tactic just last week. After getting her hands on a private letter from Andrea Leadsom to the leader of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, Bertie Armstrong, she deliberately tried to confuse and misconstrue the content of the letter, tweeting joyfully that here was the evidence of a sell-out. Of course, it backfired spectacularly when the man the letter was written to—the said Bertie Armstrong—retorted that he was perfectly satisfied with the UK’s negotiating stance and indeed believed that the letter, if read in its entirety, was very robust and explicit in stating that the UK will come out of the CFP and will have control out to 200 miles. [Interruption.]