@shadowen Said
According to the UK Civil Service's own website their role is to "supports the government of the day to develop and IMPLEMENT its policies."
Now a part of doing the above is offering advice and helping to prepare and draft new legislation. So as I said.
The Civil Service are supposed to be impartial. They are meant to provide the same level of support to government regardless of who is in power. They don't, but they are meant to...
Anyway, of course civil servants don't make promises to the people re specific political policies etc. They are not elected and this is not their role. They are however, according to their own website, meant to "support(s) the government of the day to develop and IMPLEMENT its policies." So yes, they do have a responsibility to help the government keep their promises by implementing the government's policies. What is truly bizarre is that you seem to imply that the civil service don't have to "support(s) the government of the day to develop and IMPLEMENT its policies" if they don't like the government's policies. If that's how they were allowed to operate they would be able to completely undermine the very foundations of the UK's democracy. It's crazy to suggest that unelected bureaucrats don't have to help the elected government develop and implement their policies if they don't like them. I mean they try to anyway but push comes to shove they have to follow (legal) government directives.
I've not been implying anything of the sort.
There's a difference between saying that civil servants are supposed to help implement government policy and that failing to implement said policy is partly the fault of the civil servants.
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No I'm not. I'm doing nothing of the sort. By the way, what is 'unreasonable' or 'unfeasible' is entirely subjective. All I am saying is what the civil service themselves say, and that is that their role is to ""support(s) the government of the day to develop and IMPLEMENT its policies". If they don't do that then obviously they are to blame. If they do their job and the majority of people believe that the result of the government's policy is 'unreasonable' then they can hold the government to account at the ballot box.
And who do we trust to tell us the truth when the question of whether or not they are 'supporting the government of the day to develop and implement it's policies'? After all, it's the politicians who stand to lose if the public perceive them as the problem. They have just as much motive to blame the civil servants for their own failings as the civil servants have to blame the politicians to protect their own careers.
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Parliament in general, and TM and her government in particular, controlled the overall process and i never had faith in any of them.
Neither did I, but I wasn't the one arguing against the notion that the Brexit dream was at risk because of it.
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There's a difference btw understanding the conditions of their access (contracts) and accepting significant changes to said access. Again, the EU, through the CFP, allocates a portion of the TAC for a specific area to applicable member states. The governments of these member states then sell portions of their EU assigned quota to vessels that are registered in their country. So everyone understands that the EU are determining the quotas for fishing in EU waters. The UK is no longer a part of the EU and so when the transition phase ends the EU's CFP will no longer apply to the UK's waters (unless the government sell the fishermen out). Every one bar you seems to understand this. The French fishermen certainly do. What they are trying to do is ensure that the EU does not sign any FTA with the UK unless they are promised the same access to fish in UK waters as they currently enjoy. Now again, their anger isnt because they didnt understand that if the UK wasnt in the EU the EU wouldnt control fishing in the UK's waters. Their anger is simply over the possibility of losing a significant amount of access to UK waters.
You have said that the UK taking back control of her waters would result in HM Government voiding contracts with French fishermen!
No actually. I said that the UK taking back control of her waters MIGHT result in the voiding of contracts between UK fishermen and EU fishermen, and that HMG would be the instigator of that violation.
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You said:
"The important thing is that fishermen could travel to Iceland, VIOLTAE borders, and be backed by the British Navy while they did it. Thus instigating border friction".
Violate - to break or act against something, especially a law, agreement, principle.
So if you concede that Iceland had no internationally recognised claim on the waters being fished by UK fishermen how were such fishermen violating Iceland's borders? How does that work? How did the UK instigate border friction when Iceland's claimed borders were not recognised at the time? If you knew that Iceland's claims re their sea borders werent internationally recognised why would you claim UK fishermen were violating their borders and causing border friction? How does that work then?
So what? Just because the borders weren't internationally recognized, they didn't exist or matter? Is that what you're arguing here?
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Are you for real? You keep on trying to equate the cod wars with what will happen if the UK take back control of her waters. The cod wars were all about whether or not Iceland had the legal right to expand her sea borders and deny UK fishermen access to specific fishing grounds. The KEY issue of the cod wars was did UK fishermen have the right to fish in waters being claimed by Iceland. Nearly every country in Europe thought they did. Iceland didnt. The lack of any international law governing a coastal state's EEZ meant that both sides rejected the argument of the other. However, things now are VERY different. The Laws of the Sea specifies the EEZ of all coastal states. So unlike the cod wars there is no grey area over whether or not fishermen can fish in particular waters. It's now all covered by international law. So again, the situation btw the UK and the EU post the transition phase, and the situation btw the UK (though West Germany was involved as a bit player in the 2nd cod war) and Iceland are completely different. And yet you keep on trying to argue that the situation is fundamentally the same. It's not.
I wasn't under the impression that ANY country needed international recognition in order to set up their sea borders during the cod wars, especially when the 'international community' basically didn't care to set up rules regarding it. TRADITIONALLY, borders were set up one of two ways. Either with agreements with your neighbors, or with power. Rights regarding sea borders, as you've pointed out, did not exist at this time.
As you yourself pointed out, both Iceland and the UK rejected and ignored the arguments of the other and this led to conflict. It doesn't really matter whether or not the UK or Iceland were 'right' about the border issue, the fact remained that they both acted like their own side was and this caused conflict between the two.
And for the record, I have not been "trying to equate the cod wars with what will happen if the UK take back control of her waters". The only thing I've said is that the idea to use warships to enforce control was reminiscent of the cod wars.
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First up I don't know how much bad blood there is btw French and UK fishermen. I have heard a number of UK fishermen being interviewed over the past 4 years and they actually seemed sympathetic towards local French fishermen. There indeed does appear to be a certain sense of brotherhood among fishermen on a local level. At least to some extent. Now this doesn't in any way mean that they don't want the UK to take back control of her waters and proiritise UK fishermen. However, like I said, they did not appear to be unsympathetic re how this would impact on fishermen across the channel. Personally I think that a lot of the bad blood is btw fishermen and their governments. However this is speculation on my part.
Anyway, do I think there will be an increase in poaching? Well I know you said "an escalation is basically inevitable." Now unlike you I don't know what the future will hold. I don't know for example how many French fishermen will engage in such criminal activities. I don't know how well the UK will be able to police her waters. So I don't know if poaching will go up, stay the same or even go down. I just don't know. For the sake of the marine ecosystem I hope the UK efficiently manage their waters and that they are able to effectively police said waters. Time will tell.
I find it funny that when talking about whether or not an 'escalation is basically inevitable', you say that you don't know and can't predict how things will go, but when asked about 'a resurgence of UK domestic fishing', you basically take the same logical steps that I used to reach your conclusions.
I'm just confused why you wonder how I can say such things, when you've clearly used the same thought process yourself.
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You need to do some more reading.
The cod wars were all about whether or not Iceland had the legal right to claim exclusive access to 'surrounding' waters being fished by UK fishermen. So how you can think that it simply doesnt matter that Iceland had no internationally recognised claim to said waters is beyond me.
You and I understand what 'the cod wars were all about' veeeeeerrrrryyyy differently from each other.
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That's pretty obvious. The UK government of course. By the way MANY countries use their navy to help police their waters so using the RN if required will hardly be an unusual step.
No, it wouldn't be at all unusual.