Friday, February 5, 2010

The Madness that is the EU. Part 1

Gracias, contribuyente inglés

We all know that Britain gets shafted by the rules and regulations of the EU. With our history of fair play and abiding by the rules we were always going to get shafted, no debate on that one. Our slippery continental cousins do all the ducking and diving and seem to do very well out of the EU, thank you very much.

As an island nation we have relied for countless generations on the harvest of the sea. Our traditional fishing grounds served Britain well and the industry managed them well. In 1970 there had been 21,443 fisherman employed on the boats and for every job at sea there was around ten on land relying on the industry.

Fast forward to today and it is a very different picture. Forty per cent of the fishing jobs at sea have been lost. Only around 12,000 fisherman earn a living on the boats today. The total jobs lost both at sea and on land since Britain joined the EU and has had to endure the Common Fisheries Policy is 115,000. The tonnage of fish landed in British ports has nearly halved.

All the above is bad enough to endure without the following...

The EU fishing fleet has been modernised extensively, all at the taxpayer's expense of course. As the British fleet was modern and well managed our 'share' of the pot was negligible. For every pound spent on British boats the Spanish fleet got £6.72. It doesn't take an expert to work out how our fishing industry has been destroyed. Our traditional fishing grounds are now our EU partners fishing grounds.

The British taxpayer has contributed £150 million towards building foreign fishing vessels which can legally plunder our seas. Even today, we still contribute £64 million a year to the madness of the Common Fisheries Policy.

We pay Pedro and his chums to steal our cod and haddock.

12 comments:

subrosa said...

They've been nicking our fish for years but now it's worse than ever Rab. I know Richard Lochhead tries his best but the UK government aren't interested.

RantinRab said...

I despair of the whole EU thing. A trading agreement? Fair enough.

Taking over everything? No thanks.

vote UKIP said...

The German Dr Death who is carrying on where Hitler left off is another example of the EU madness.
EU doctors can work over here with no checks carried out into their competence. Not even whether they can speaky the ingrish. Of course there are rules that are ignored as there's no political will to enforce them. A bit of buck passing until the sheeple back down.
And here's the best bit. When they kill folk they can scuttle back to where they came from and we can't even charge them. Doctor Death in Germany is still practising over there after getting a small fine from a German court. He wasn't even a real doctor but some kind of cosmetic specialist.
But it's just small fry compared to the global warming scams and corruption that are all sanctioned by the EU.

RantinRab said...

In a small act of defiance against EU rules, this very morning I threw a failed eco light bulb into the general waste wheelie bin.

I have not taken it to a recycling centre.

My bad.

Anonymous said...

OFT but I see Greece has been taken over by the EU, effictively, under a clause from that fucker, the Lisbon Treaty.

Not a good sign of things to come.

Toni said...

The Fishing thing is shocking, Spanish, French and Italian fishing fleets routinely clean out our waters but as Britain leads the world in jobsworth inspectors our own fishermen are the ones who are penalized if they so much as consider exceeding the days they are allowed out at sea. The government simply lets the message seep out over the tv that British people despite being an island race don't like fish. I and most people I know love eating fish. My father who was born in 1939 says that fish was the only decent protein you could get during the war and long before the American invasion of KFC, Pizza Hut and McDonalds wasn't fish and chips our favorite food? hmmmmm, feeling hungery know just off to get a haddock and chips...what do you mean that will be £8, bastards!

Sam Duncan said...

“A trading agreement? Fair enough.

Taking over everything? No thanks.”


That's what the founding members of EFTA - us included - said.

Remember, folks: the EU is not a trading alliance gone haywire; it was always meant to be a political union.

(WV: supper. Yum!)

Anonymous said...

You devil Rab! There's always a warning on batteries & printer cartridges about their disposal - mine go straight into the kitchen bin. Fuck them & their Stasi rules!
P.S don't give up blogging - just do the occasional one so you can respond when your piss really begins to boil.

microdave said...

And STILL some idiots claim we are better off staying in the EU......

Dark Lochnagar said...

Rab, take it from someone who was a Fishmerchant for twenty odd years and exported to Spain up to 100 tons of fish a week, Spain are not interested in Haddock, (Eglifino). They don't eat it. Hake, Monkfish, Megrims, Witches Dovers, Cod, Whiting, Lythe, are all species they crave. Plaice and Haddock are no,nos.

Gordon the Fence Post Tortoise said...

Rab, FYI - from direct personal experience I can tell you it's worse than you portray.

I can tell you than there's more than a few "British" fishing boats that hardly ever see a British port, they're Spanish owned and operated but captained by generally alchoholic, washed up Brit trawlermen - illegal netting is rife....

The on board EU fishing monitor's reports are routinely ignored and a report from the captain / ship owner is lodged so the EU catch figures are absolutely meaningless

In the UK our domestic fishermen are subjected to a barrage of idiotic petty officialdom that frankly beggars belief - while the folk alluded to above pillage what's left of our fish stocks.... and thumb their noses at us.

The entire EU fisheries policy requires a dose of reality - UK fuckwit politicians and twat public administrators / executive are having rings run around them as they sit in their comfy offices trying to blame falling cathes on warbal gloming while the riches of the sea are mined rather than harvested by our neighbours et al.

Uncle Marvo said...

Being frank, Rab, it is only fair and just that "our" share of the pot is neglible compared to that of other countries in the EU.

This is because we are a rich nation, well-positioned to offer our money to the poorer nations of the EU.

After all, we can easily afford to subsidise the banking industry who, through no fault of their own, have fallen on bad times and, Lord knows, they work from hand to mouth to help our great nation to carry on producing quality goods for the rest of the world.

Even our lifeboat institution is fully funded by the government and our fishermen's lives don't have to be subsidised by charitable donations.

Whisht, mon. I can't keep this bollocks up any longer.