UK government ‘only has 12 boats’ to police fishing waters after Brexit Plans to ban EU fishermen from British waters would require 12 vessels to police an area three times the size of the UK, officials warned.

A leaked government email has revealed that the UK may not have the capacity to police its own fishing waters after Brexit.

An email mistakenly sent to the BBC by officials within the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on Friday calls into question plans to ban EU fishing boats from British waters under a no-deal Brexit.

In the email, an official admitted: “At this stage, there is a lot of uncertainty about the sufficiency of enforcement in a no deal because we have 12 vessels that need to monitor a space three times the size of the surface area of the UK.”

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Not a strong footing

The internal message, which was not intended to be made public, was sparked by a media enquiry from a journalist writing about preparations to exclude foreign vessels from UK waters for The Independent.

An official noted that despite the government’s “widely communicated” position on fishing rights, “both policy [officials] and MoD [Ministry of Defence] have indicated we are not on an overly strong footing to get ahead of the potential claims that could arise from this story.”

The French government has previously indicated that it could simply ignore demands for fishermen to stay out of UK waters after a no-deal Brexit, with Agriculture Minister Didier Guillaume making clear: “There is no circumstance in which… Boris Johnson could prevent French fishermen from fishing in British waters.”

In addition to a shortage of ships, the email indicates that UK needs to urgently hire more maritime enforcement officers ahead of the 31 October Brexit deadline, with “additional officers undergoing enforcement training.”

Former First Sea Admiral Lord West, now a Labour peer, said that it is clear the UK does not have the capability to enforce a ban on EU fishing vessels.



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He told Sky News : “We do not have enough ships to a protect our fishing zones should we suddenly have a disagreement with the EU about who is fishing where [after we leave] – we just don’t have enough ships.

“When you include the job of stopping illegal immigrants, where the navy needs to help because there aren’t enough cutters, and smuggling, terrorists and so on, we have not got enough vessels in all the agencies to ensure the safety and security of our territorial seas and the protection of our fishing zones.”

Ships and expertise

A government spokesperson responded: “Unfortunately this evening an internal email was inadvertently sent outside of Defra. Handling emails allow officials to examine the veracity and details of media enquiries.

“Britain is leaving the EU on Oct 31 with or without a deal. We are confident that we will have the ships and the expertise we need to properly enforce security in UK waters.”