A former chief of the UK’s naval staff has said the nation does not have enough ships to patrol its waters, warning of “disastrous” consequences after Brexit.
Ex-First Sea Lord, Lord West of Spithead, said the “insufficient” number of ships had been exposed by recent clashes between British and French fishermen over scallops.
Rocks and smoke bombs were hurled at British fishing vessels in the English Channel during skirmishes on Tuesday. French mariners are angry about a domestic ban preventing them from harvesting the scallop-rich region while British boats have free rein to fish.
Lord West said the bitter dispute had revealed the UK’s lack of protective cover and organisational flaws.
“It is clear that we have insufficient ships to patrol the United Kingdom’s territorial seas and our Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ),” the Labour peer wrote in a letter to TheDaily Telegraph.
“Co-ordination of the few ships we do have is fragmented. In theory, co-ordination is exercised by the co-located Joint Maritime Operations Command Centre.
“But this command centre lacks a single commander with authority to order government departments to take action, and therefore is unable to exercise proper command.
“After Brexit, this will be disastrous.”
If Britain leaves the EU, it will become responsible for patrolling its own EEZ, rather than being part of a shared EEZ for the whole of the bloc.
EU members’ access to British fishing waters still needs to be negotiated as part of any Brexit deal.
The current EU Common Fisheries Policy allows any member state “equal access” to EU waters more than 12 nautical miles off the shore of other countries.
A long-running feud over scallops and territorial waters came to a head earlier this week in the Baie de Seine area, part of the English Channel.
French authorities are attempting to preserve scallop stocks in the area off the coast of northern France by banning fishing there until the end of September. The French domestic law does not apply to British fishing boats, however.
On Tuesday morning around 35 to 40 French ships encircled a dozen British boats near the coast of Normandy.
Boats rammed into each other and the French fishermen were accused of throwing projectiles and shouting insults at their British counterparts.
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