eurealist.co.uk

As expected Dr Richard North has a post on the Conservative green paper His posts concludes:
“Although it is primarily a consultation document, this represents a major shift in the Conservative Party – a genuine step towards repatriating an unpopular and failed EU policy.

With Michael Howard having committed to bringing this about by national legislation if necessary, this also represents a major challenge to UKIP. For all their rhetoric, UKIP have not been able to come up with any credible (or any) proposals for managing British fisheries, leaving Owen Paterson to remark that, if the fishermen and the nation wants to restore our fisheries to national and local control, there is only one option at the ballot box.”

But it is in the comments the real problem, other than the Tories actually winning the election is discussed, I suppose it’s a matter of paying your money and taking your choice. Personally I feel the Tories have let us down to many times in the past to be allowed the soft option of asking us to trust them, without a solid watertight commitment to stand by their word this time round, and I will look for a firmer ground to their argument than hoping that the EU will not act to preserve its powers.

willoughby de broke:
Hang on, hang on. Michael Howard did indeed promise - in a letter to John Whittingdale MP -to introduce national legislation to regain control of our fisheries if he was unable to convince every one of our competitors - sorry, partners - in the EU to agree to the hand-back as part of his ‘renegotiation’ strategy.
The difficulty for Mr Howard is that the CFP is embedded in and central to the all EU treaties which successive Conservative and Labour Governments and Parliaments have signed and ratified. Britain would therefore be in clear breach of its treaty obligations were Parliament to pass an Act to repatriate our fisheries policy. We would be hauled in front of the Luxembourg Court of Justice and Further Integration before you could say “Manuel Barroso”. Verdict: guilty on all counts as charged. What then? Will Mr Howard back down, or will he expect British taxpayers to pay the unlimited fines to which we would be liable and provide the money for a fleet of armed fisheries protection vessels to stop other member states fishermen entering waters to which they believe are theirs by right? Or will he recognise that the only way he can redeem his pledge is by withdrawing from the EU? We may still need the protection vessels but the cost would hardly register when set against our annual EU membership fees of £11 billion ..

Richard North:
“With what ultimate threat if the rest of the EU disagree with what they want?”
Parliament is still sovereign. If parliament so decides, it can remove the UK from the CFP. And once again, the thing to be careful about is not taking a legalistic view of a political construct. Of course the commission could refer the UK to the ECJ - in the same way that the council could have referered France and Germany to the ECJ on their failure to conform with the Growth and Stability Pact. You have to ask yourself whether the commission is likely to take the political risk of referring the UK in the knowledge that the UK will not pay any fines. We simply call their bluff. Whenever a big country has done this, the commission has backed off.