Proof that the French fishing boat claims are all at sea – an exclusive analysis

Frost proves French claims wrong, announcing the true figures for fishing licence applications

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Government releases full data, showing Facts4EU.Org has reported accurately throughout

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Ahead of a crunch meeting with French ministers today, at 9pm last night Lord Frost announced the release of all Government data on EU fishing vessel licence applications. This information shows clearly that claims by French government ministers are wildly inaccurate.

“As there are some partial figures around, and for full transparency, we have today set out in Parliament the full & authoritative data on the state of play on fishing licences granted by the UK, Jersey, and Guernsey this year.”
- Lord Frost, 03 Nov 2021

Facts4EU.Org has analysed this new official information overnight, to bring readers a summary report which shows just far ‘off beam’ the French government has been.

Firstly, what has the President Macron’s French government been claiming?

Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary

The erroneous claims by the French government of President Macron

‘We lack more than 40% of French licence applications’
‘10% of EU licence applications have not been granted’
‘All the missing ones are French’

Source: The above claims were all made publicly by Clément Beaune, President Macron’s protégé and his Minister for European Affairs, on Twitter on Sunday 31 Oct - around 36 hours before the French unilateral ultimatum to the UK was due to expire.

Reality: The French claims are so off beam as to be all at sea

The data released by the UK government yesterday shows the numbers of applications received for EU fishing vessel licences, broken down by category and by EU country. After analysing the figures Facts4EU.Org can bring readers a simple comparison of the French government’s claims and the sober reality.

SUMMARY - The French fishing claims v. the reality

French claim 1: The UK has failed to grant over 40% of French licence applications - FALSE

French claim: “Over 40%”
The reality: 3.9%

French claim 2: Only around 90% of expected EU licences have been granted - FALSE

French claim: ‘Around 10% of expected EU licences have not been granted’
The reality: 2.1%

French claim 3: “All the missing licences are French” - FALSE

French claim: 100%
The reality: 89.5%

Channel Islands have granted permission for more French boats than they’ve had French applications

When it comes to the Channel Islands, as we pointed out in our report yesterday Jersey and Guernsey are NOT part of the UK. They are democratic, self-governing, Crown Dependencies. They negotiate on their own behalf with the EU, as can be seen below from the photos posted below by France’s Minister of the Sea, Annick Girardin two weeks ago (18 Oct 2021).

Credit: Annick Girardin, Twitter - click to enlarge

In the above photo are Jersey’s Minister for External Relations and its Deputy Minister for Environment. The UK’s fisheries minister was also present.

Secondly, Jersey and Guernsey together have granted permissions to more French fishing boats than they have received licence applications for.

Applications received by Channel Islands from the French: 275
French boats currently allowed to fish in Channel Island waters: 329
Percentage: 119.6%

Finally, for completeness, what about ‘replacement licences’?

In an EU fleet totalling more than 2000 fishing vessels which are currently allowed to fish in UK and Channel Island waters, it is natural that some of these boats will be in the process of being replaced at any one time.

The UK currently has a total of 37 boat replacement requests from the EU and Jersey has 11. Where these are on a ‘like-for-like’ basis it is unlikely they will be refused. If a skipper needs to replace his worn out vessel with something similar this would be normal.

If, however the French are requesting a licence for a ‘replacement boat’ of 27m in length, to ‘replace’ a boat of only 7m in length, then this can hardly be called a replacement. Any fisherman in the world would say that this is a brand new business venture.

These technical discussions are continuing in order to establish a set of criteria to ensure replacement boats are similar to the original.

Observations

Finally, a true fightback from Westminster

The information published by the UK Government yesterday is very welcome. Our analysis clearly shows that French government claims have been highly misleading, to say the very least.

Facts4EU.Org has argued for many years that the Comms Departments in Government seem reluctant to counter EU propaganda. This is one of the reasons our team felt we had to continue, despite the effect on our livelihoods and careers. It is therefore satisfying to see Lord Frost announcing this news yesterday evening.

It will be interesting to see if French media pick this up. We will keep readers posted.

Double-speak standards?

When a sitting US President sent out tweets that Twitter staff disagreed with, they labelled them fake news and in the end President Trump was given a permanent ban.

Here we have a French government minister tweeting out claims which are demonstrably untrue. Given that this minister is part of President Macron's inner circle, however, we advise readers not to expect him to be banned from Twitter any time soon.

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Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Thur 04 Nov 2021

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Reader Comments 8

1. Simon Kynman , Thursday, November 04, 2021, 08:05:

Remoaners have been falling over themselves to criticise the uk whilst defending the french. Shame on these anti British, anti democratic sore losers!

2. Denise Bevan , Thursday, November 04, 2021, 08:16:

Contrary to some of the more hysterical commentators against our Government, I can't help but admire the restraint and courtesy with which our Ministers respond to the outlandish claims made by Macron and his PM.
It's so much more dignified to just quietly and firmly present the facts.... such a British way of doing things!

3. Terence, Derbyshire , Thursday, November 04, 2021, 09:59:

Once again the stories coming from the Eu or mostly France in this case are proved to be wrong. How many times have we heard this in the last few years? I hope Lord Frost stands very firmn in Paris today. I'm sure the majority in the UK will be on his side if he does.

4. Eleanor Baxter , Thursday, November 04, 2021, 14:08:

What do we expect from the French? Of course they will present a false reality of the situation. Macron can just not accept that we are now free to say who can or cannot fish in our waters. In any case France should not be acting as an independent nation. They are only a state of the EU and as such must act as a member state and accept whatever share of fishing permits they get!

5. Karl Allsop , Thursday, November 04, 2021, 14:59:

Why are we not having discussions about immigration and fishing around the same table?

6. Postie Plod , Thursday, November 04, 2021, 16:18:

5. Because Leave voters ended both. What you should be talking about is Russia cutting power to Europe & gathering forces on it's Western border...maybe that's too much of a stretch for you. That would require thinking. Maybe you should carry on talking about a fishing industry & freedom of movement you ended with your vote. Happy gloating, at least you're out of the way.

7. Bazza , Thursday, November 04, 2021, 17:34:

I take it that, “demonstrably untrue”, is a euphemism, for outlandish lies?

8. jon livesey , Thursday, November 04, 2021, 17:35:

In the long term, the best thing about this fight is that it puts paid to an illusions that the EU just want what's best for us. They don't. They are not trying to protect our rights, they are not acting as good neighbours, they are not trying to be honest partners. They just want UK resources and markets and that was always the only reason they wanted us in the EU. It was always a form of exploitation.
And it has all blown up in their face. Their unreasonable demands, which they are now repeating with Poland, just meant that they wanted our resources but without giving us a proportional say in how the EU was run. No-one with any sense is going to go for a deal like that. No-one is going to pool their resources for a scheme which is always run to benefit France and Germany.

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