You’re being ridiculous, they kept saying. Why do you keep talking about fish? The Brussels lobby could scarcely conceal its disdain when rumours emerged that the price of Britain concluding a defence agreement with the EU at next month’s London summit might be concessions on fishing rights.
Defence secretary John Healey chided Labour’s critics for their ‘Brexit rhetoric’. Daniel Zeichner, the food security minister, could hardly have been clearer when he appeared in front of the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee at the beginning of April. He dismissed the idea of defence being negotiated as part of a wider conversation about the UK/EU relationship, including access to fisheries: ‘No decisions have been taken and there is no linkage’.
Brussels was never going to treat us indulgently – why on earth would it?
Yesterday the Times reported that decisions had, in fact, been taken and there was, in fact, a ‘linkage’.
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