Jamie_R

🎣 Remember when 🇬🇧 fishing was the poster child for Brexit? Boris Johnson told a Brixham fish merchant to hire more staff because once we’d “taken the fish off the French” he’d be overwhelmed with business. Seven years later, the promised bonanza never arrived. More than 60% of UK seafood exports still go to the EU. Export volumes were still 14% below 2020 levels in 2025, while exporters grapple with veterinary certificates, customs paperwork and tax rules. And fishermen now say migrant workers are essential because they can’t recruit enough Britons. One skipper puts it perfectly: without his foreign crew, “we wouldn’t be going to sea”. Brexit promised fishermen control of the waters. Nobody thought sufficiently about who would crew the boats 👉or who would buy the fish. That is Brexit in miniature.