Faisal Islam, Political Editor

A brisk early hours trade in the famous Friday morning fish market at Peterhead. The newly-landed haddock, cod, coley, and squid are selling out to supermarkets, factories and restaurants, from across the UK, and as far as Spain.

But it's the fisherman here, almost all supporters of the Leave campaign, that are starting to believe that they are the first ones to be traded off in the Brexit negotiation.

Jimmy Buchan showed us through the boxes of fresh fish straight from the boats. "Less than 24 hours old, it doesn't even smell," he exclaims, not entirely objectively.

His basic state is one of excitement at the opportunity of a fishing boom post-Brexit, a chance for Westminster to atone for what occurred in the 1970s.


He is even looking in to a plan to air freight daily the glut of fish over which the UK has "taken back control" to new markets around the world, as Iceland does.

Brexit Forensics: Choppy seas ahead for Britain's fishing industry

"This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to undo something that was wrong 43 years ago - I started as a 16-year-old in 1976 - it was a great vibrant industry which slowly declined because everyone was sharing equal access.

"We now have an opportunity not to kick them out, but as the economy with the waters to finding a way to get our fleets and communities to grow."

But, the whiff of betrayal does linger in the air here too.

"This is too big an opportunity to let go, and if they do they will never be forgiven. They will go down as the people who have failed this nation.

"Our message to them is 'do not let us down or we will never forgive you'," as Jimmy cheerfully tours the sales.

Up the coast at Fraserburgh port, regardless of the rough seas, the currently out of quota vessels won't be fishing herring and mackerel today. Skipper George West expects Brexit to change that eventually, but he too fears history repeating itself.

Image: Jimmy Buchan says Brexit is too big an opportunity to let go

"That's always our concern, but our hope is that having been sold down the river once that we won't be sold down the river again.

"The country wants to see us recover and regain what is rightfully ours and the nation's," he tells me in the Captain's seat aboard the Resolute, moored in the fishing quay.

Indeed the industry is buoyed by the fact that although small in size and employment, fishing has become a totemic issue for Brexiters and one, it argues, unites Remain and Leave campaigners.

The statistics are tough to argue with - in 1973 the home fishing fleet landed over one million tonnes of fish, and in the latest year for which there are figures, 2016, it was 446,000 tonnes.

The number of fisherman is now 11,757, a record low, less than half what it was in 1973, though the biggest fall was between 1948 and 1970 from 50,000 to 24,000.

The size of the fleet has been in steady decline too - though it did increase for the first time in recent history in 2016 - by four vessels to 6,191.

There is room to grow, in a theoretical world where all of the fish caught in UK waters is caught and landed by UK vessels.

But the key other number is £682m - the contribution of fishing to UK economy in Gross Value Added terms - or 0.034%.

Tiny, even if it doubles, and therefore, always at risk at not being the priority in a negotiation, when compared to, say, pharmaceuticals or finance.

Image: The size of the UK fleet has been in steady decline

That is already being seen in this week's controversy following the draft agreement on a transition deal.

When push came to shove, the Government was unwilling to rock the boat on a status quo transition, essentially a standstill agreement, by immediately asserting legally sound claims to reclaim territorial waters.

Then again, the status as an "independent coastal state" negotiating independent international agreements still awaits the end of the transition deal.

Why is the fishing community so concerned about delaying this status and having the same system for a year or two?

"What we are talking about in a transition period isn't the same. It is us being tied to control from EU but with no input, everyone knows we'd be leaving... so our voice wouldn't be heard in that situation", says Skipper George.

Indeed, Bertie Armstrong, the chairman of the Scottish Fisherman's Federation says: "What the EU is asking for is actually worse than the present deal where we would have a seat at the table in the corner without a voice ... and that is absurd for a newly born coastal state which under international law has complete sovereignty over its own resource and access to it."

But he goes further - the specific fear is that what is agreed to be a transition measure in negotiations such as this, can often end up anything but that.

"That's what our experience shows us time and time and time again, nothing is temporary - we had a warning from that from another coastal state - Norway - the one thing you must not do is enter into temporary arrangements because they will become permanent ... we are acutely aware of that.

"Access to the waters needs to be under control of the UK. The amount fish they're allowed to catch - that's a matter for negotiation".

Other fishing campaigners argue that the latest phase of the EU "discard ban" could be used to "crush" the UK fishing fleet in the period the UK is absent from EU fishing councils but still bound by its rules.

Image: The fish processing industry relies on labour from the EU

The "sea of opportunity" opened up refers mainly to the fact that UK vessels caught 42% of the fish taken from UK seas last year.

"Normality in other coastal states such as Iceland is 95%, or 85% for Norway which means modifying the balance really quite dramatically. In money terms that would mean a billion pounds a year," says Mr Armstrong.

But nothing is simple in Brexit. The wider fish industry eagerly anticipates that boom, but will need to keep access to migrant EU labour to deal with such a glut, and crucially does not want tariffs on the trade in processed fish.

The fish industry exports half its catch, or two-thirds of all exports, to the rest of the European Union tariff-free.

Most of what is caught by UK vessels is exported, chiefly salmon, mackerel and herring, and instead the fish consumed in the UK is imported, principally tuna, cod and shrimps and prawns.

The tonnage and value of imports exceeded exports, and has done since 1983. Net imports of fish hit £1.4bn in 2016.

So at a Peterhead processing factory where conveyor belts of herring are filleted and skinned ready for supermarket shelves, Sinclair Banks admits that as well as lots of new quota for his firm's vessels, he wants to keep current tariff free access for raw and processed fish.

"The opportunity for investment is considerable, but we also want opportunity to trade with Europe on a competitive basis," he tells me.

No need to link access to waters to freedom to trade says the industry, let alone wider trade negotiations.

Image: There are fears that Michael Gove might view the industry as expenable

But if there is a lot more UK quota, it will still be the same fish, arriving in different vessels. Some of the European fleet will lose their trade.

New processing facilities may be required, perhaps replacing the Dutch factory vessels. That will require access to factory labour, that in the short term is likely to be predominantly from the European Union, as already occurs in Norway.

Indeed, while here there is no doubting the allergy to a fuzzy period of transition, delaying full arrival at the top table of coastal negotiations, the industry is far from supportive of the "hard Brexit" of which it has become a totem.

Indeed, the Norway option of full control over fishing (and agriculture) involves membership of the single market in all other areas.

Indeed it is not just a matter of simply "taking back control" of the fish currently caught in UK waters.

Indeed as academic Dr Bryce Stewart told Parliament last year, much of the same "UK" catch in fact originate in spawning and nursery grounds "outside the UK exclusive economic zone (e.g. in French, Belgium and Dutch waters)".

He said: "Most of the fish species which are targeted by the fisheries currently managed by the EU are highly mobile and may cross through the waters of several different countries, even during a single year".

The oceans guarantee the freedom of movement, for fish, at least.

For that and other reasons the EU is likely to try to link access to waters with free trade. Here the answer is No. As Mr Armstrong says: "As long as we have sovereignty then the amount of access and fish is another matter - that can be a matter for negotiation.

Image: A protest by pro-Brexit fishing groups on the River Thames in June 2016

"What we must not do is trade away the sovereignty of our own waters. We can be as generous or ungenerous in negotiations, but the really fundamental point is that we've waited 44 years for control of the waters and we must not trade that away".

Essentially he assesses that the draft transition deal does in fact mean that the UK asserts such sovereignty before "seconds later" reversing back in to EU rules and quotas for another two years.

Indeed in private Brussels is adamant that the Common Fisheries Policy still applies in transition, whereas the UK Government argues that technically Britain leaves it next March.

The real number that matters here, though, is 13. That is the number of Scottish Tory MPs elected on a manifesto promising full coastal state independence.

Those MPs kept Mrs May in Downing Street, and were, alongside leader Ruth Davidson, vocally imploring the PM not to "do a Heath", a reference to her predecessor as Conservative PM, and his role during EEC accession negotiations in 1970 in sidelining the interests of the fishing fleet.

One Government note from that year by an official released under the Thirty Year Rule said of fishermen, "in the wider UK context, they must be regarded as expendable".

That is why coastal Tory MPs flooded into Downing Street, and were reassured that in January 2021, the UK will assume full sovereignty over its coastal waters.

The industry however is fearful that the calculus which favoured a status quo transition for bigger industries over freedom for fishing this week, will simply be repeated in regards to the final deal too.

"Keep your eye on the bigger prize" was the message from the Environment Secretary Michael Gove in Parliament.

In north east Scotland, this industry mindful of history, and the presence of bigger fish in the Brexit negotiation, are far from convinced.