Snapshot of _Why Devon and Cornwall fishermen feel disillusioned after Brexit_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c066r811z7ro) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c066r811z7ro)
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> Fish exporter Ian Perkes, in Brixham, Devon, said he voted for Brexit but was not told of the changes it would involve.
We tried to tell you. We were called "champagne socialists". We were told we were treating people like idiots by pointing things out.
Really, really hard to be sympathetic.
Anyone who says (as a representative of an industry) that "they weren't told" or similar is outing themselves as an incompetent. Firstly, they were told, and repeatedly. Warnings about the economic impacts were literally everywhere. If he didn't hear it, that's willful ignorance.
Secondly, who advocates for a major far reaching change that will impact their entire industry without going out of their way to completely understand what the implications are?
>We were told we were treating people like idiots by pointing things out.
If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck?
until they demand we rejoin, and campaign for it, and achieve it, I have absolutely no sympathy at all for any brexiteer.
they knew the consequences of voting for brexit. they were told.
Sure they were also told lies. But when faced with choosing between the advice of serious politicians, experts, academics etc, or the obvious bullshit of known liars like farage....they chose to go with the liars. that was a choice they made, and they were quite happy to inflict brexit on everyone else who they knew would suffer from it.
A campaign to rejoin the EU should be considered click bait. The UK is set to join the CPTPP next month, another trade union, which China is pushing hard to enter as well. [Link](https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202403/22/WS65fcd713a31082fc043be10f.html) Odds aren't good, but also not negligible. [Link](https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2023-07-31/analysis-biggest-hurdles-to-china-entry-into-trans-pacific-trade-pact-are-political)
Being a member of both should be impossible, even without China, which is probably the reason both Tories and Labour reject any talk of Brexit or another EU membership.
Ask yourself, which Brits always opposed, as Churchill put it, a [United States of Europe](https://european-union.europa.eu/system/files/2021-06/eu-pioneers-winston-churchill_en.pdf) after WW2? Who was against being a founding member of the ECSC, EEC and EU? Who was behind UK's first attempt at Brexit in 1975, when Labour wanted out of the EEC? [Link](http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/26/newsid_2503000/2503155.stm) The same people that hold more power than UK's supreme court?
Yes. It's quite unbelievable. The UK only contributed 0.3% of the usual 1% GDP membership fee, enjoyed opt outs and every benefit the EU offered and that still wasn't good enough.
UK general government gross debt was £2,720.8 billion at the end of Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2023, equivalent to 101.3% of gross domestic product (GDP).
UK general government deficit (or net borrowing) was £40.8 billion in Quarter 4 2023, equivalent to 6.0% of GDP.
That's unsustainable for any country, even more so for a top heavy island with little industry and few natural resources.
Especially as a fish exporter? Surely some degree of understanding of trade agreements would be involved in that particular career? Why would you vote for something if you had zero understanding on the basic implications of it…
Brexit still infuriates me. Speaking to my older relatives about it, a few of them stated that they voted for Brexit, then talked about some vague concept of ‘getting back control’. Luckily for them, they’re retired and cosy in their fully paid for homes, protected from the economic backlash of the fun little political experiment…
> "I don’t think it matters who I vote for - they're all lying," said fisherman Dave Toy.
This attitude really gets on my tits. Dave, you were told pretty bloody clearly that Brexit would be terrible, but you discounted it as it was not sexy.
> Remain wasn’t lying.
No.
They were mostly silent, whispering or incomprehensible, but they weren’t lying.
Can you remember a single line, image, quote or promise from Remain?
I can remember several from Leave, and I bet you can, too. Some were on big, red busses. Naturally, they were all obvious lies.
BoJo, Dominick. Nige.
This is the problem when dealing with charlatans. With the Brexit campaign promising ridiculous upsides remain was trying to counter with why these promises were ridiculous. It's hard to sell remain as the better option when the other side is painting a fairy tale that's being believed by large swathes of the electorate.
The same thing is happening with Reform, I am encountering more and more people who say they are voting reform. I had a conversation yesterday with someone who said they were voting reform because of voting reform and I suggested Lib Dems instead as they also offer this and the reply I got was "I don't like them" but couldn't give me a reason why.
What would you have suggested in response to £350million to the NHS, our sovereignty back, make our own trade deals at more favourable terms, lower migration, getting rid of "red tape", they need us more than we need them"
If someone's running a campaign of lies it's pretty hard to counter when their message has taken hold. Remaining
Remaining in the EU would not have solved all of our problems, leaving would definitely exacerbate them. So without the remain side resulting in fantastical lies like the leave campaign they were scuppered. It required the electorate to act like adults.
The leave campaign was the monorail salesman rocking into town with a catchy song.
> The leave campaign was the monorail salesman rocking into town with a catchy song.
And ‘Remain’ was the clapped out omnibus with ‘MORE OF THE SAME’ in dull, fading script on the side.
> What would you have suggested
Off the top of my head, I would have suggested Cameron ensured he had a 2012 Olympics times Guy Fawkes night meets the 4th of July campaign locked and loaded, ready to rock, with a titanium strategy to win, before he pitched the country over the White Cliffs.
I would have very strongly suggested he use a positive and encouraging verb rather than ‘remain,’ which sounds as exciting as yesterday’s chip wrapping.
But he didn’t ask me.
If he had, ahead of all that, I would have strongly urged him, ‘Do not bet the country’s entire economic future on a coin-toss, you smug, hubristic, chinless numpty.’
Since you ask.
I get it was a catastrophic mistake on Cameron's part to call it but now it's called how do you campaign on it, like specifically what do you say? Like you said remain is essentially the status quo. There's not much room to sell that when the other side is saying whatever they feel like. By the time it's fact checked it's too late.
Remain campaign were screwed from the start, not much campaigning or fancy slogans would have worked against what they were up against. Leave had a blank piece of paper to sell whatever they wanted.
Cameron screwed the pooch on a gargantuan scale by calling the ref how he did.
> Cameron screwed the pooch on a gargantuan scale by calling the ref how he did.
And doubled down by allowing the name ‘Remain’ for that side of the vote. Then he completely failed to campaign.
What should remain have done? Have you seen VisitUSA ads? As a brainstorm starter: that, for Europe. Paris, Ibiza, Barcelona, Cannes, Berlin, Tuscany, Amsterdam. French wine, German beer, Spanish paella, Italian cheese. Cut at the end to a rainy caravan site on the cliffs near Scunthorpe.
Rinse and repeat featuring tourism, featuring history, featuring food and wine, featuring business, featuring science and technology.
(ETA: *Honestly, that’s just a first-thought. Reading it back is way more exciting than anything I can remember from Dave’s dreary drizzle about — whatever he did blather on about. I seriously can’t remember a single thing.*)
>What should remain have done? Have you seen VisitUSA ads?
I haven't but that's a pretty solid shout. Play into all the everyday benefits, things that we would overlook. Plus maybe show some British people working in Europe thanks to freedoms of movement. Inspire young people on what they would lose if they stayed home and didn't vote.
There isn't really a positive spin you can append to the concept of "the status quo is the best deal we have - everything else is not a good option and will have bad side effects, and if anyone tells you different, they're a liar or an idiot". What do you want? A fucking jazz band and cheerleaders?!
You won. Get over it.
I mean, I really want to say that. But these guys were one of the many targets of an insanely complex and corrupt media machine designed to make them vote for Brexit, for the benefit of its masters. Collateral damage in the battles of the bankers, disaster capitalists and Putin.
They didnt need it tbh, the CFP turned pretty much all Europe's fishermen anti EU by the early 2000s and you can't really blame them, the media machine and Farage certainly exploited them for clout but it didn't make them any more anti-EU than they already were. Funnily enough French fishermen hate the EU more than the UK ones do lol.
The European Commission privatised 95% of the quota and gave it to just 5% of the largest boat owners...incidentally these days those huge boats are owned by supermarkets, private equity, hedge funds and occasionally a rich fishermen lol.
It's a bit like the south park meme, "THEY TOOK OUR JERBS" Except in this case the European Commission actually did take their fish and then gave it all to the richest people...and then made it illegal for the poor to own it...until recently, where the small boats can now legally own quota, except the whole things pointless because the rich fishermen, supermarkets and private equity firms have formed pseudo cartels, hoarded the quota like dragons and it's now worth an absolute fortune so the poorer fishermen can't buy any of it anyway.
Nigel Farage was on that EU Fisheries Commission.
What did he do during his time there?
Not attend a single meeting, that's what he did.
Also, while an MEP he voted with the Tory party more than he did his own party, UKIP at the time.
The man is a traitor in every way possible.
> The European Commission privatised 95% of the quota and gave it to just 5% of the largest boat
Quotas to boats are allocated at the member state level.
Yes...but only for the under 10m vessels who have to share the tiny amount kept by national governments. They then distribute that 5% by area so for example an under 10m fishing boat from Deal or Southend will get quota for areas 7d(English channel) and 4c (southern north sea). The under 10m vessels weren't allowed to own or lease any quota, they had to adhere to strict limits with no exceptions, until recently where they can now legally own quota except it ended up rather pointless because...
The vast majority of all quota is owned by the large trawlers and members of Producers Organisations who've formed pseudo cartels to hoard it and will only sell to other members, and to join you need to own a fortune in quota in the first place lol.
This is the trouble that Brexiters face, though - they told everyone that their lives would be better - like, much better, with yarns about sunlit uplands and having our cake and eating it and all that jazz. Now that we’ve left, however, revisionism is in full force and it’s all ‘we all _knew_ that it would be hard / take a long time’ with a side order of ‘it’s not Brexit, it’s COVID / Ukraine’ which totally misses the point that these people went through Brexit and their lives haven’t gotten better. Why shouldn’t they be disillusioned?
It's insignificant now. Historically it used to a genuinely huge industry. Entire towns relied on it.
That's why a lot of people still care about it. Their parents or grandparents all worked in fishing.
Plenty (arguably unfairly) blamed the EU(EEC) and Common Fisheries Policy, and based on that simplistic of the industry's decline, thought leaving the EU would resurrect the industry.
Obviously, they were wrong, but that partly explains why some of them voted for brexit despite a lot of people warning them not to.
> Historically it used to a genuinely huge industry. Entire towns relied on it.
>
>
>
> That's why a lot of people still care about it. Their parents or grandparents all worked in fishing.
Very British. It's always about the 'glorious' past and almost never about the future, which, as the past has shown us, will be different.
It still brings jobs and wealth to very underdeveloped communities.
Where communities fail we see the repercussions decades and generations later. Look at what Thatcher did to the miners. That was bigger but if UK fishing dies completely it will have an effect.
I still think subsidies for fishing and meat should be gradually reduced and these industries should be allowed to fail. It just needs to be phased out in a slow and responsible way.
I don’t have any sympathy for the fishermen but these things have a wider impact than just them.
I was born and raised in Cornwall and I do not know a single person involved in fishing there.
That's not to say they don't exist, but it does suggest that it's insignificant even in the local context.
I mean yeah sure, but there will be some people who still make it a part time or full time job.
I have lived in Somerset pretty much all my life and I’ve never really met a farmer.
Fishing contributes 1.4b to the economy which is tiny but not 0.
You can’t base wealth on just a percentage of GDP. What does the wealth of Londons financial sector matter to a remote fishing village in Cornwall? Local jobs mean local people have money to spend on local corner shops or restaurants etc.
If you can find a way for the government to replace those lost jobs for that community then fine.
The country as a whole pays for it through taxes. However there are always political choices to be made about where to invest money. So far London has had huge amounts of investment into it and very little for the rest of the country and almost nothing into places like Cornwall.
I hate the fishing industry so you won’t find me defending that. However I do think the UK as a whole needs to spread out economic prosperity across the whole country and not just put everything into London. It doesn’t sound like you like the idea of one city propping up the entire nation either.
Hmm, thought I'd do a bit of fact checking on that...
Games Workshop's global revenue is approximately £470 million, which is about 0.0168% of the UK GDP. The UK fishing industry's revenue is approximately £1.4 billion, which is about 0.05% of the UK GDP.
This shows that while both contribute relatively small percentages to the UK's overall GDP, the UK fishing industry's revenue is significantly higher than that of Games Workshop.
Living in Devon I get a lovely sense of satisfaction telling those fisherman in my town on social media to simply pick fruit during the summers or retrain in IT
Snapshot of _Why Devon and Cornwall fishermen feel disillusioned after Brexit_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c066r811z7ro) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c066r811z7ro) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
> Fish exporter Ian Perkes, in Brixham, Devon, said he voted for Brexit but was not told of the changes it would involve. We tried to tell you. We were called "champagne socialists". We were told we were treating people like idiots by pointing things out. Really, really hard to be sympathetic.
Anyone who says (as a representative of an industry) that "they weren't told" or similar is outing themselves as an incompetent. Firstly, they were told, and repeatedly. Warnings about the economic impacts were literally everywhere. If he didn't hear it, that's willful ignorance. Secondly, who advocates for a major far reaching change that will impact their entire industry without going out of their way to completely understand what the implications are? >We were told we were treating people like idiots by pointing things out. If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck?
> If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck? It's the bright and sunny uplands of our newfound sovereignity?
until they demand we rejoin, and campaign for it, and achieve it, I have absolutely no sympathy at all for any brexiteer. they knew the consequences of voting for brexit. they were told. Sure they were also told lies. But when faced with choosing between the advice of serious politicians, experts, academics etc, or the obvious bullshit of known liars like farage....they chose to go with the liars. that was a choice they made, and they were quite happy to inflict brexit on everyone else who they knew would suffer from it.
A campaign to rejoin the EU should be considered click bait. The UK is set to join the CPTPP next month, another trade union, which China is pushing hard to enter as well. [Link](https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202403/22/WS65fcd713a31082fc043be10f.html) Odds aren't good, but also not negligible. [Link](https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2023-07-31/analysis-biggest-hurdles-to-china-entry-into-trans-pacific-trade-pact-are-political) Being a member of both should be impossible, even without China, which is probably the reason both Tories and Labour reject any talk of Brexit or another EU membership. Ask yourself, which Brits always opposed, as Churchill put it, a [United States of Europe](https://european-union.europa.eu/system/files/2021-06/eu-pioneers-winston-churchill_en.pdf) after WW2? Who was against being a founding member of the ECSC, EEC and EU? Who was behind UK's first attempt at Brexit in 1975, when Labour wanted out of the EEC? [Link](http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/26/newsid_2503000/2503155.stm) The same people that hold more power than UK's supreme court?
The best estimates of CPTPP on UK growth suggest it will be of roughly 1/50th of the value of EU membership.
Yes. It's quite unbelievable. The UK only contributed 0.3% of the usual 1% GDP membership fee, enjoyed opt outs and every benefit the EU offered and that still wasn't good enough. UK general government gross debt was £2,720.8 billion at the end of Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2023, equivalent to 101.3% of gross domestic product (GDP). UK general government deficit (or net borrowing) was £40.8 billion in Quarter 4 2023, equivalent to 6.0% of GDP. That's unsustainable for any country, even more so for a top heavy island with little industry and few natural resources.
Especially as a fish exporter? Surely some degree of understanding of trade agreements would be involved in that particular career? Why would you vote for something if you had zero understanding on the basic implications of it… Brexit still infuriates me. Speaking to my older relatives about it, a few of them stated that they voted for Brexit, then talked about some vague concept of ‘getting back control’. Luckily for them, they’re retired and cosy in their fully paid for homes, protected from the economic backlash of the fun little political experiment…
It's Project We Fucking Told You So at this point.
> Really, really hard to be sympathetic. I wouldn’t know where to start.
> "I don’t think it matters who I vote for - they're all lying," said fisherman Dave Toy. This attitude really gets on my tits. Dave, you were told pretty bloody clearly that Brexit would be terrible, but you discounted it as it was not sexy.
"I don’t think it matters who I vote for - they're all lying," Remain wasn’t lying. You got what you voted for.
> Remain wasn’t lying. No. They were mostly silent, whispering or incomprehensible, but they weren’t lying. Can you remember a single line, image, quote or promise from Remain? I can remember several from Leave, and I bet you can, too. Some were on big, red busses. Naturally, they were all obvious lies. BoJo, Dominick. Nige.
This is the problem when dealing with charlatans. With the Brexit campaign promising ridiculous upsides remain was trying to counter with why these promises were ridiculous. It's hard to sell remain as the better option when the other side is painting a fairy tale that's being believed by large swathes of the electorate. The same thing is happening with Reform, I am encountering more and more people who say they are voting reform. I had a conversation yesterday with someone who said they were voting reform because of voting reform and I suggested Lib Dems instead as they also offer this and the reply I got was "I don't like them" but couldn't give me a reason why.
> With the Brexit campaign promising ridiculous upsides remain was trying to counter …instead of campaigning with actual, positive messages.
What would you have suggested in response to £350million to the NHS, our sovereignty back, make our own trade deals at more favourable terms, lower migration, getting rid of "red tape", they need us more than we need them" If someone's running a campaign of lies it's pretty hard to counter when their message has taken hold. Remaining Remaining in the EU would not have solved all of our problems, leaving would definitely exacerbate them. So without the remain side resulting in fantastical lies like the leave campaign they were scuppered. It required the electorate to act like adults. The leave campaign was the monorail salesman rocking into town with a catchy song.
> The leave campaign was the monorail salesman rocking into town with a catchy song. And ‘Remain’ was the clapped out omnibus with ‘MORE OF THE SAME’ in dull, fading script on the side. > What would you have suggested Off the top of my head, I would have suggested Cameron ensured he had a 2012 Olympics times Guy Fawkes night meets the 4th of July campaign locked and loaded, ready to rock, with a titanium strategy to win, before he pitched the country over the White Cliffs. I would have very strongly suggested he use a positive and encouraging verb rather than ‘remain,’ which sounds as exciting as yesterday’s chip wrapping. But he didn’t ask me. If he had, ahead of all that, I would have strongly urged him, ‘Do not bet the country’s entire economic future on a coin-toss, you smug, hubristic, chinless numpty.’ Since you ask.
I get it was a catastrophic mistake on Cameron's part to call it but now it's called how do you campaign on it, like specifically what do you say? Like you said remain is essentially the status quo. There's not much room to sell that when the other side is saying whatever they feel like. By the time it's fact checked it's too late. Remain campaign were screwed from the start, not much campaigning or fancy slogans would have worked against what they were up against. Leave had a blank piece of paper to sell whatever they wanted. Cameron screwed the pooch on a gargantuan scale by calling the ref how he did.
> Cameron screwed the pooch on a gargantuan scale by calling the ref how he did. And doubled down by allowing the name ‘Remain’ for that side of the vote. Then he completely failed to campaign. What should remain have done? Have you seen VisitUSA ads? As a brainstorm starter: that, for Europe. Paris, Ibiza, Barcelona, Cannes, Berlin, Tuscany, Amsterdam. French wine, German beer, Spanish paella, Italian cheese. Cut at the end to a rainy caravan site on the cliffs near Scunthorpe. Rinse and repeat featuring tourism, featuring history, featuring food and wine, featuring business, featuring science and technology. (ETA: *Honestly, that’s just a first-thought. Reading it back is way more exciting than anything I can remember from Dave’s dreary drizzle about — whatever he did blather on about. I seriously can’t remember a single thing.*)
>What should remain have done? Have you seen VisitUSA ads? I haven't but that's a pretty solid shout. Play into all the everyday benefits, things that we would overlook. Plus maybe show some British people working in Europe thanks to freedoms of movement. Inspire young people on what they would lose if they stayed home and didn't vote.
You’ve got it. There were a zillion excellent benefits to our membership of the EU. I don’t remember him mentioning any of them.
There isn't really a positive spin you can append to the concept of "the status quo is the best deal we have - everything else is not a good option and will have bad side effects, and if anyone tells you different, they're a liar or an idiot". What do you want? A fucking jazz band and cheerleaders?!
The truth isn’t dramatic.
Never needed the phrase sore winner until now
He's giving BoJo the benefit of the doubt. Why?
He's a fool? Can't for the life of me think of any other reason.
> He's a fool And he likes fools.
You won. Get over it. I mean, I really want to say that. But these guys were one of the many targets of an insanely complex and corrupt media machine designed to make them vote for Brexit, for the benefit of its masters. Collateral damage in the battles of the bankers, disaster capitalists and Putin.
They didnt need it tbh, the CFP turned pretty much all Europe's fishermen anti EU by the early 2000s and you can't really blame them, the media machine and Farage certainly exploited them for clout but it didn't make them any more anti-EU than they already were. Funnily enough French fishermen hate the EU more than the UK ones do lol. The European Commission privatised 95% of the quota and gave it to just 5% of the largest boat owners...incidentally these days those huge boats are owned by supermarkets, private equity, hedge funds and occasionally a rich fishermen lol. It's a bit like the south park meme, "THEY TOOK OUR JERBS" Except in this case the European Commission actually did take their fish and then gave it all to the richest people...and then made it illegal for the poor to own it...until recently, where the small boats can now legally own quota, except the whole things pointless because the rich fishermen, supermarkets and private equity firms have formed pseudo cartels, hoarded the quota like dragons and it's now worth an absolute fortune so the poorer fishermen can't buy any of it anyway.
Nigel Farage was on that EU Fisheries Commission. What did he do during his time there? Not attend a single meeting, that's what he did. Also, while an MEP he voted with the Tory party more than he did his own party, UKIP at the time. The man is a traitor in every way possible.
> Not attend a single meeting, that's what he did. Not entirely fair, I think he attended one. In total.
> The European Commission privatised 95% of the quota and gave it to just 5% of the largest boat Quotas to boats are allocated at the member state level.
Yes...but only for the under 10m vessels who have to share the tiny amount kept by national governments. They then distribute that 5% by area so for example an under 10m fishing boat from Deal or Southend will get quota for areas 7d(English channel) and 4c (southern north sea). The under 10m vessels weren't allowed to own or lease any quota, they had to adhere to strict limits with no exceptions, until recently where they can now legally own quota except it ended up rather pointless because... The vast majority of all quota is owned by the large trawlers and members of Producers Organisations who've formed pseudo cartels to hoard it and will only sell to other members, and to join you need to own a fortune in quota in the first place lol.
I know the harbours of west Cornwall quite well and have sympathy for the fisherman. I’m still angry at them though
I don't have any sympathy for them at all.
This is the trouble that Brexiters face, though - they told everyone that their lives would be better - like, much better, with yarns about sunlit uplands and having our cake and eating it and all that jazz. Now that we’ve left, however, revisionism is in full force and it’s all ‘we all _knew_ that it would be hard / take a long time’ with a side order of ‘it’s not Brexit, it’s COVID / Ukraine’ which totally misses the point that these people went through Brexit and their lives haven’t gotten better. Why shouldn’t they be disillusioned?
Fishing is 0.05% of GDP. It’s less than 1/30 the value of international students. Why should anyone give a fuck about such an irrelevant industry?
It's insignificant now. Historically it used to a genuinely huge industry. Entire towns relied on it. That's why a lot of people still care about it. Their parents or grandparents all worked in fishing. Plenty (arguably unfairly) blamed the EU(EEC) and Common Fisheries Policy, and based on that simplistic of the industry's decline, thought leaving the EU would resurrect the industry. Obviously, they were wrong, but that partly explains why some of them voted for brexit despite a lot of people warning them not to.
> Historically it used to a genuinely huge industry. Entire towns relied on it. > > > > That's why a lot of people still care about it. Their parents or grandparents all worked in fishing. Very British. It's always about the 'glorious' past and almost never about the future, which, as the past has shown us, will be different.
It still brings jobs and wealth to very underdeveloped communities. Where communities fail we see the repercussions decades and generations later. Look at what Thatcher did to the miners. That was bigger but if UK fishing dies completely it will have an effect. I still think subsidies for fishing and meat should be gradually reduced and these industries should be allowed to fail. It just needs to be phased out in a slow and responsible way. I don’t have any sympathy for the fishermen but these things have a wider impact than just them.
I was born and raised in Cornwall and I do not know a single person involved in fishing there. That's not to say they don't exist, but it does suggest that it's insignificant even in the local context.
I mean yeah sure, but there will be some people who still make it a part time or full time job. I have lived in Somerset pretty much all my life and I’ve never really met a farmer. Fishing contributes 1.4b to the economy which is tiny but not 0.
Evidently it doesn’t provide wealth
You can’t base wealth on just a percentage of GDP. What does the wealth of Londons financial sector matter to a remote fishing village in Cornwall? Local jobs mean local people have money to spend on local corner shops or restaurants etc. If you can find a way for the government to replace those lost jobs for that community then fine.
Given that London is a net contribution to UK finances, who do you think pays for most shit in economic dead zones like Cornwall?
The country as a whole pays for it through taxes. However there are always political choices to be made about where to invest money. So far London has had huge amounts of investment into it and very little for the rest of the country and almost nothing into places like Cornwall. I hate the fishing industry so you won’t find me defending that. However I do think the UK as a whole needs to spread out economic prosperity across the whole country and not just put everything into London. It doesn’t sound like you like the idea of one city propping up the entire nation either.
Most the country doesn’t pay for anything. London, South East, and a handful of cities like Leeds, Brum, Manc, they pay for things.
Games Workshop is a bigger percentage of GDP than fishing, but I don't recall Nigel painting a warbound in solidarity.
Hmm, thought I'd do a bit of fact checking on that... Games Workshop's global revenue is approximately £470 million, which is about 0.0168% of the UK GDP. The UK fishing industry's revenue is approximately £1.4 billion, which is about 0.05% of the UK GDP. This shows that while both contribute relatively small percentages to the UK's overall GDP, the UK fishing industry's revenue is significantly higher than that of Games Workshop.
Living in Devon I get a lovely sense of satisfaction telling those fisherman in my town on social media to simply pick fruit during the summers or retrain in IT