Saturday, February 12, 2022

Brexit: Fishing in Troubled Waters

Tension is building up between the UK and France over post-Brexit fishing licenses. 

Below is excerpt from The Economist ,  Nov 24th, 2018.

"On December 11th 1975 an Icelandic coastguard vessel came across a group of British ships sheltering from a storm in a fjord and ordered them to leave. The minesweeper collided with one of the British boats. Shots were fired; first blanks, then live ammunition. London sent in a frigate force. Reykjavik took the incident to the un. And all because of fish. The incident, more evocative of 18th-century gunboat diplomacy than modern relations between liberal democracies, played out at the height of the “cod wars” over fishing rights. Rival trawlers frequently rammed each other. The conflict even affected the cold war: Britain felt itself obliged to divert naval ships from patrols of the North Atlantic to guard North Sea trawlers. Iceland ultimately got its way by threatening to leave NATO."

Image credit - Capital Finance International


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Oppenheimer and Oscar Economics

This  article  is quite long, but has important modern implications.  Source: Michael Ramirez, The Gazette.