In the lead up to last week’s referendum on whether the United Kingdom should remain in the European Union, immigration often seemed to be at the forefront at the debate. But the fishing industry was also a hot topic, even leading to demonstrations and bitter exchanges on the impact of EU membership, including from boats on the Thames. With the UK voting to leave the EU, there is a lot of uncertainty for the future of fisheries. Here are some areas, affecting policy, science and society, where the impacts may be felt.

POLICY

The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) manages fishing fleets and stocks in the EU; it allows all Member States open access to EU waters. But the CFP has been criticized as being ineffective in managing fish stocks. The “leave” side had been campaigning against the CFP, so the assumption should be that the UK will push to free its fisheries from the CFP framework, possibly towards the model currently used by Iceland and Norway.

The UK may choose to stay with the CFP, but if they don’t, they will need to create their own policies in regards to:

Fisheries management and negotiations for fish quotas — Fishing quotas are used to attempt to prevent stocks from being overfished. Total allowable catches are shared between EU countries as quotas. These quotas are allocated to each member state, but this is negotiated, rather than equally divided. Currently, fishers from outside the UK can buy British vessels and fish under British quotas, while UK operators are entitled to do the same in other Member States. New rules must be applied if the UK leaves the CFP. The UK could potentially adopt a position similar to Norway and negotiate fishing quotas with EU countries, but this may result in a less beneficial share of the quotas.

