Thirty five years ago, on the night EU governments agreed the common fisheries policy, I was in Luxembourg-sur-Mer. I was a freelance journalist working for, among others, Fishing News, the weekly bible of the British sea fishing industry. I say “Luxembourg-sur-Mer” because more than 50 Scottish trawler skippers turned up, representing different ports or regions or sectors of the industry. Most of the skippers, by my recollection, were called “Willie”; there the consensus ended. Some thought that Britain had negotiated a reasonable deal in difficult circumstances. Others were already using the “b” word – betrayal.

The three or four English fishing representatives who travelled to Luxembourg were equally divided. Some thought the new common fisheries policy was broadly fair. Others complained that the government had favoured Scottish interests, selling what remained of the cod war-devastated, English, deep-sea fishing industry down the River Humber.

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I worked for Fishing News from Brussels for another couple of years, phoning over scoops on the proposed annual allocation of fishing quotas (“North Sea, Area 4b, Haddock, 230,000 tonnes … ”) and I have remained interested in fishing and fishing policy ever since.

I mention all this because the present debate on fishing and Brexit often obscures two vital points, sometimes through ignorance, sometimes through lies.

First, there is no such thing as the British fishing industry. There are many competing interests: English v Scottish; white fish v pelagic (mackerel etc); deep-sea fishing v inshore fishing; industrial v family-scale boats; fishers vs processors.

Some have reasons to dislike the EU fisheries policy, but not all. Much of what you read or hear – especially from Ukip, the crazy wing of the Conservative party or the Daily Express – is based on a simplification of the views of the most loudmouthed (and often the wealthiest) parts of the industry. It ignores many basic truths and real British interests and ecological concerns.

An impression persists that the EU fisheries policy destroyed the long-distance trawler fleets from Hull, Grimsby, Fleetwood and Aberdeen, which once put most of the fish into Britain’s fish and chips. In truth, these boats never cast their nets in “British” waters – or what became from 1983, “European waters”. They sailed the much richer white fish grounds off Iceland, but lost the right to do so when Reykjavik won the three “cod wars” of the 1960s and 1970s, and pushed its fishing limits to 200 miles (322km).

An impression persists that the EU policy destroyed the fleets that put most of the fish into Britain's fish and chips

When Britain joined the then EEC in 1973, we accepted the fait accompli of a joint 200-mile European fishing limit (rather sneakily agreed by the six original members in 1970). Margaret Thatcher’s government did force concessions. When the common fisheries policy was finalised in January 1983, it was agreed that the pool of fish available in each sea area – the total allowable catch (TAC) – would be split into national quotas based on actual fishing records from the 1970s. Britain successfully insisted that its own quotas must be boosted to take account of its “lost” fishing opportunities off Iceland.

Some of the British quotas for cod and other prized types of white fish were therefore set, and remain at generous levels – 84% of the available haddock in the North Sea, for instance. This was an El Dorado for the Scottish fleets from Peterhead, Fraserburgh and Shetland, but too late for Hull and Grimsby.

It was true then, and remains true now, that about 6o% of the tonnage of quotas within the “British” 200-mile limit went to non-British boats. But two points must be remembered.

The “foreign” boats had fished there for decades, sometimes for centuries. A large part of the “tonnage” of the foreign-caught fish consisted, then and now, of species we do not much like to eat (herring or hake, for instance) or species caught for milling into animal feed. The Danes, for instance, take 90% of the sprats in some “British” sea areas – and they did so long before the common fisheries policy.

The common fisheries policy since 1983 is often reckoned to have been a failure. Stocks of some species, especially cod and haddock, fell to dangerous levels in the late 1990s – largely because EU governments, egged on by successive British governments, awarded catches up to 30% beyond what scientists said was sustainable.

The policy of forcing fishers to “discard” (throw back into the sea) dead fish that fell outside their quotas was also rightly excoriated by public opinion. This policy is now being phased out. For the last decade or so, quotas have also been set much closer to the levels recommended by scientists.

Haddock stocks are now thriving. Cod is on the way back. Herring and mackerel are much more plentiful than they were in the mid-1980s. Global warming is, however, beginning to mess up the logic of the 1983 quota patterns. Some species, especially hake, are migrating northwards. Since fish refuse to recognise either “national” sea boundaries or existing quota “catch areas”, there is a case for radical change, but also for continuing joint management with the EU post-Brexit.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Nigel Farage throws fish into the Thames to protest against common fisheries policy. ‘It is time to abandon misleading rhetoric’ Photograph: Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images

Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and others like to say that the CFP has “destroyed” the British fishing industry or “halved” the number of British fishermen. In fact, in terms of profits of the big fishing companies, the British industry is one of the most successful in the EU.

If the numbers of fishermen in the UK have fallen sharply since 1973, it is partly the fault of the cod wars. It is also the result of the sale and concentration of quotas into fewer and fewer hands – something that successive British governments have permitted or encouraged.

Thus lucrative Scottish white fish quotas are now dominated by three or four multimillion-pound companies based in north-east Scotland. Worse, 50% of all English quotas and 88% of Welsh quotas are “owned” by British-flagged ships that are really Spanish or Dutch or Icelandic. One Dutch mega-trawler has the right to catch 24% of the total English quota.

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By contrast, the inshore fleet – fishing within 12 miles, using boats mostly shorter than 10 metres, with much lighter ecological impact - is allowed just 4% of the total English quota. None of this has anything to do with the EU, which is why you never hear Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage complain about it. The divvying out of national quotas is purely the responsibility of national government. It is time for it to abandon its misleading rhetoric on fishing policy, and put forward reasonable proposals to Brussels. There is no historical or moral case for throwing all continental boats out of British waters. That would only provoke disastrous retaliation against British seafood exports to Europe.

There is a case for adjusting the 1983 EU quota pattern in Britain’s favour. There is, above all, a case for small-scale fishing communities to be given a substantial increase in their share of the British catch. That would be a genuine Brexit, and ecological, bonus – even if it has nothing to do with Brexit.

• John Lichfield is a former EU correspondent based in France