Davidson and Gove are right to oppose a Brexit stitch-up of the British fishing industry

One of the most interesting and potentially significant emerging alliances in British politics right now is the link between Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson and Environment Secretary Michael Gove.

Davidson and Gove were on opposite sides of the Brexit battle during the referendum campaign, but they have been talking and getting on well in recent months. Perhaps it helps that Davidson is an ultra-sceptic on Boris Johnson. A Boris sceptic could like that Michael Gove blew up the Boris leadership campaign in spectacular fashion in June 2016 by breaking their pact and running himself. Gove’s concerns then about Boris’s suitability for the highest office have been vindicated by the problems of his tenure at the FCO, say the Foreign Secretary’s critics. No they haven’t, say Boris’s friends who still think he can win a leadership race, in part because he is helped by no longer being the frontrunner. We’ll see.

What is clear is that Ruth Davidson, a darling of the Tory activists, would run barefoot over hot coals to stop Boris becoming the next Conservative leader. Davidson is appalled by his buffoonish persona, but she is not an MP and won’t be in the next leadership race to take him on herself. Davidson will not consider a Westminster seat until at least after the next Holyrood elections, which take place in May 2021. Her endorsement in a leadership race when it comes will matter though, considerably.

All that seems a while off, with Theresa May having one of her mini-revivals this month. But Davidson and Gove could be an effective post-Brexit partnership for the Tories. The first public manifestation of their cooperation came at the weekend with a joint statement on Brexit and the future of the fishing industry.

“We believe it is vital that we regain control over our own fisheries management,” they wrote. “We want to use the opportunity of Brexit to secure a sustainable marine environment for the next generation. As proud Scots, we feel a particular debt to fishing communities who are looking to government to deliver a better deal for them. We agree we must deliver a fairer allocation for the British fleet in our own waters… As we leave the EU, we want the UK to become an independent coastal state, negotiating access annually with our neighbours. And during the implementation period we will ensure that British fishermen’s interests are properly safeguarded.”

What is going on here? Last week the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with his (sarcasm alert) customary political adroitness, answered a question about selling out the fishing industry in a manner that infuriated Scottish Conservatives and Brexiteers.

The aim, Philip Hammond said, is that in the Brexit negotiations “British fishermen get a better deal in the future than the one they’ve had in the past.” But fishing fleets from across the EU might have to be given reciprocal access rights, post-Brexit, he speculated. This sounded worse than equivocal, leading the supporters of the fishing industry to suspect a stitch-up. There was despair among those who understand the issue. I understand one of his colleagues described Hammond in relation to this subject as a “complete arse.”

Are the Tories getting ready to sell out fishing communities, as they did when the UK joined the European Union (EEC) project?

From landlocked southern Tory MPs I’ve heard it said several times in the last week that this is probably in the offing, trading a deal for the City for access to British waters. That is curious, because it now looks increasingly unlikely there will be any “deal” for the City anyway, despite what the Chancellor says. The EU needs access to global London, the financial capital of Europe, and the UK will declare itself open for business, but the consensus from British institutions is that it cannot be regulated by email from Brussels or Frankfurt. That would be ridiculous. Any deal that gives Brussels oversight in this area is a non-starter. More of that another time.

There are other reasons to question the wisdom of selling out fishing communities. however. Not only is there an ethical duty to the fishing industry, which has been battered by the EU. Selling these citizens out would also be politically extremely stupid on the part of the Tories ahead of the next general election. In the coastal parts of England that hope to revive a fishing fleet, Brexit tends to be popular. Betrayal as part of Brexit would be unpopular, to put it mildly.

Then there are the cold, hard facts of electoral life in Scotland and their bearing on the Westminster picture. The Tories lost their majority at the last general election and their position would be even more perilous if there had not been a revival in Scottish Conservative fortunes under Ruth Davidson. They won 13 seats in 2017, in Gordon even unseating the former SNP First Minister Alex Salmond, loser of the 2014 independence referendum and now a presenter for Russia Today. Yes, really. Russia Today.

At Westminster, the Tories are currently eight short of an overall majority, and govern only with the support of ten DUP MPs from Northern Ireland. The Tories need every seat they can get next time, which means holding seats such as Moray, in the North East of Scotland. Voters there take the fishing industry very seriously. More than 50% of the UK’s catch is landed north of the border and it is a powerful issue even in non-fishing seats where voters sympathise.

Clearly, it is easy for Home Counties politicians such as the Chancellor to forget all this. Perhaps he is so used to weighing the vote in Runnymede and Weybridge, majority 18,050 last time, that the concerns of those at the other end of the country seem distant. But presumably Hammond wants the next government to be Conservative, and not Corbynite. If so, it is probably worth understanding that in the next general election the margins may be fine, again, and the fishing industry could count, a lot.

There is much more at stake than the Tories and their narrow electoral requirements, though. After Brexit there is the chance to do something exciting that revives the fishing industry. I used the word exciting deliberately. It was the word used by a Greenpeace spokesman to describe Gove’s objectives and the opportunity that flows from Brexit.

To their own astonishment, the green-lobby has welcomed Gove’s rebirth as an environmentalist pushing for a green Brexit. One can question how sustainable all this is, and Gove and Davidson will now have to persuade the cabinet and the Brexit negotiators that fishing should not be sold down the river. But at least this new pairing are, in sharp contrast to Hammond, showing dexterity, imagination and optimism about the possibilities.

In the face of this, there is something dispiritingly and classically British establishment about the assumption that these folk can and will be traded away dishonourably by the alleged sophisticates in the Treasury. It must not happen.

Have a good week.

Iain Martin,

Editor and publisher

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