… on the way: a RN “River Class” patrol vessel

Today is Polling Day and the weather isn’t wonderful, according to the BBC weather forecast. It’ll be grey and cold all across the country, with showers predicted. So grab your brolly and do your civic duty, dear friends – unless you’ve already used your postal vote. Whom to elect? Any Independent candidate, of course. Thanks to covid ‘rules’, results won’t be known before the weekend.

Meanwhile, the fishing ‘row’ instigated by the French has ratcheted up. Two Royal Navy patrol boats are sent to Jersey because French fishermen are apparently going to blockade St Helier, the Jersey Port. The vessels are HMS Severn and HMS Tamar. We’re told that they’re armed with machine guns but there’s a helpful description of HMS Severn in The Times (link, paywalled), mentioning that the vessel carries 50 Royal Marines in addition to her 45 sailors. I would’ve  thought that this information would come under the Official Secrets Act, but what do I know … Perhaps this RN deployment might be sufficient. After all, not even French fishermen would want to mess with the Royal Marines, would they.

Why did BJ act so decisively? Was it due to the belligerent words of the French fishery representatives? One, representing Normandy, said his colleagues ‘felt insulted’. Here’s the other:

“David Sellam, the head of the joint Normandy-Brittany sea authority, said: “We are confronted by people who are not trustworthy. Jersey has been taken over by an extremist fringe who want to reduce French fishing access and profit from Brexit. “We’re ready for war. We can bring Jersey to its knees if necessary.” (paywalled link)

Oh dear oh dear. French sabre-rattling at its finest. But why – and why now? I’ve been trying to piece together what information I could glean from the various MSM articles. Here’s one account:

“Under the Brexit trade deal, EU fishermen have been granted some access to UK waters during a transition period. However, boats wanting to fish within 12 miles of the shore need to be licensed and prove they have a history of fishing in those waters. Jersey decided to deny fishing rights to some French boats that applied for a licence because they were unable to prove such a historic link. There were also catch restrictions and limits on the types of net they could use. This infuriated French fishermen who saw it as an effort to use Brexit to limit access.” (link, paywalled)

This is all covered in the Brexit Trade Agreement, referring to the Transition Period which lasts until 2026 – so nothing really extraordinary except French ‘hurty feelz’. That’s probably why the French Minister who kicked this off has refused to speak with her counterpart, George Eustice. Well, perhaps BJ needs to speak with the French Premier? There’s also the G7 meeting of Foreign Ministers in London, thus we read that:

“Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, is understood to have raised the issue with his French counterpart on the fringes of the G7 meeting in London while Greg Hands, the trade minister, brought up the issue on a trip to Paris. However, so far Girardin has refused to speak to her counterpart, George Eustice, government sources have claimed. One said it appeared to be another example of the EU’s willingness to disregard the provisions of the agreement they signed up to.” (link, paywalled)

The background to the French threat of switching off the electricity supply to Jersey – ‘even the Nazis kept the lights on’, said one government source to the DT – is however more intriguing. RemainCentral quotes French ‘sources’ who gave a lovely spin to the issue:

”French sources highlighted a section of the trade and cooperation agreement under which France is obliged to continue to support electricity interconnectors with both the UK and Jersey until 2026. This is the same point at which the Brexit agreement on fishing also expires. They stressed that Girardin was not threatening to breach the agreement but merely use its provisions to ensure long-term stability for French fishing.” (link, paywalled)

The point is that both the Fisheries deal and the deal regarding energy supply end in 2026, at which time we can ban all EU vessels, not just the French, from our waters – better late than never, sez I. However, the energy deal with France – all those interconnectors – is due for renewal at the same time. The DT writes:

“The Telegraph understands that a review of energy links with France is being discussed.  Currently, Britain imports around eight per cent of its power from foreign nations and Northern Ireland via the underwater interconnectors. But as the UK becomes more reliant on wind power, there are plans to increase its foreign electricity imports to around 25 per cent by building new underwater cables which can be relied upon when wind power supplies are low. However, Whitehall sources suggested France could now be cut out of any deal to provide energy in the wake of its threat to Jersey.” (paywalled link)

One developer allegedly hinted that a new interconnector could be built to go to the Netherlands rather than France. Be that as it may – the reference to the UK ‘becoming more reliant on wind power’ means that actually, the UK will become more open to blackmail by EU countries, be they French, be they the Netherlands.

I’m not going to bet even a bent penny on our government being steadfast in protecting our fisheries when push comes to shove. Remember that it’s Dutch vessels who use electropulse fishing in the North Sea. Of course the Dutch fishermen wouldn’t ‘do as the French’, of course they’d never ever blackmail us to let them have all our fish or the lights go out! Of course not …

We know the green blob isn’t interested in such piddling stuff as protecting fish, never mind protecting British fishermen – not when they can force us to switch to ‘renewables’, looking ever so caring, while also relying on energy coming from elsewhere. We know that these are the same people who’d ruthlessly use the covid legislation to push through more restrictions so as to ‘save the planet’. Their hypocrisy is well established, preaching water while drinking wine.

We know that they don’t give a fluff when they can stomp on our customs and freedoms so as to look ‘green’. For example, there’s the news that more people are now dying of pneumonia and influenza than of covid (link, paywalled). We know what this ‘ll mean: mandatory muzzle wearing forever, under the ‘precautionary principle’, something the green blob likes to evoke incessantly. There’s this article in LockdownSceptics where Will Jones looks at a report on the toxicity of face masks, especially for the environment. Will we hear the green blob screech that “we” must stop wearing muzzles to save our environment? I’m not holding my breath!

I leave you with the news that cher Michel has published his memoirs of the Brexit negotiations. It’s a ‘tell-tale secret diary’, the DT writes, with Johnson being denigrated as ‘petulant’ and ‘childish’. I was intrigued to see that cher Michel has skilfully woven in a remark about the famous ‘dead cat’ strategy, as if only our negotiators ever employed such dastardly tactics. Of course, Ms May and Oily Robbins gained high praise from M Barnier:

“But for sure for us, this woman who didn’t like Brexit, which she was obliged to see through, and which she didn’t want, was infinitely preferable as Prime Minister to all the Brexiters,” he says.” (paywalled link)

Never mind how convoluted this reads – it’s a translation from high-style Barnier-French into English. I’m sure you’ll just love his take on other British politicians:

”Voicing disdain for his British opposite numbers, he dismisses Dominic Raab as a man with a “Messianic light in his eye” who “lacks nuance”, and says David Davis kept a low profile and “avoided blows”. Jacob Rees-Mogg is described as “one of the most ideological Eurosceptic Conservative MPs and decidedly the most opportunistic, who cultivates a style that is more 19th century than close to the people”. […] Jeremy Corbyn gets short shrift as an “old school Leftist” who failed to grasp the technicalities of the negotiations and bore a “heavy responsibility” for sitting on fence [sic]. But Mr Corbyn’s successor, Sir Keir Starmer, receives the Barnier stamp of approval “as I get the feeling I am dealing with a future prime minister of the UK”.” (paywalled link)

Well, being praised by Barnier Le Frog should be the kiss-of-death for Starmer. I had to go to RemainCentral to find the Barnier-take on Frosty. It is delicious:

“As talks ended in a deal last year, Frost had not replied to text messages from Barnier pleading for more details on fishing quotas, but British proposals were then sent to von der Leyen, sidelining Barnier. The betrayal overshadowed their last meeting on Christmas Eve. “This is the last time, after nine months of negotiations, that I see David Frost, and this last exchange is professional and cold,” Barnier writes. “He knows that I know that right up to the last moment he wanted to bypass me.” (link, paywalled)

So now we know, from the horse’s, sorry: Cher Michel’s mouth that the whole Brexit negotiations were about himself and his feelings. In the typical Brussels and French manner, it was only ever about the politicians involved, never about how we, the people, influenced the politics in our country, about our demand that Brexit be done.

Cher Michel is yet another reason why we so desperately wanted Out. God save us if he does become French president in the next French elections …

KBO!

Photo by Pat McDonald