The herring question: fishing for Britain’s future

Following on from this post on Des Browne’s interview with The Scotsman today, the Secretary of State for Scotland (who is also the Secretary of State for Defence, though you might think that ought to be a full-time job) also had this to say:

Mr Browne also dealt a blow to the aspirations of the SNP Executive, which has started negotiations with Westminster in an attempt to get Scottish ministers to lead for the UK in European fishing talks. Mr Browne said the UK government would not agree to such a change. He said: “As far as fisheries is concerned, Scotland has a voice in the fisheries negotiations annually, but they are UK negotiations. It’s the United Kingdom which is a member of the European Union and Alex Salmond knows that. “I frankly don’t think there is any possibility of the UK government conceding a position which reflects a different constitutional position than the one that we have.”