EU illegal fishing in UK waters Buggered

It's the Express this morning that carries the best story. You'll remember how we're always being told that the EU is a 'rules based organisation'? Indeed the EU has been as tedious as a pub bore on the subject, whilst privately breaking all its own rules when the interests of the, erm, EU are at stake. This is going to work against the EU's fishing nations in a big way, as Bertie Armstrong, Scottish Fishing Federation boss, told the paper.

As HuffPost reported, French agriculture minister Didier Guillaume said earlier this month that "There is no scenario in which French fishermen should be prevented, could be prevented, would be prevented by Boris Johnson, from fishing in British waters. There is no reason for it. So I will keep telling Britain that our fishermen must be allowed to keep fishing in its waters". Brave words, young Kermit - but just bluster.

As the Express reports -

Bertie Armstrong, the CEO of the Scottish Fisherman’s Federation, claimed the European Union would become the "laughing stock of the world" if they did not respect British waters in the event of a no deal Brexit. "The European Union has led the world in the fight against what is referred to as IUU - illegal, unregulated, unreported fishing, off the coast of Africa and elsewhere in the world. If fishing nations in northern Europe were suddenly to engage in fishing which is not approved by the new owners of the waters, then the European Union would be the laughing stock of the world. It would be unacceptable."

This doesn't mean of course that individual French vessels will not seek to break the law - either straying a mile or so inside the marine boundary in acts of calculated defiance, or more seriously by turning off their AIS transmitters. All vessels over a certain size must continuously transmit vessel information under international law - this is the AIS plot of Peterhead harbour this morning, crammed with trawlers. Individual ship details can be brought up to give detailed vessel, course, speed and track information.

So how can we track them if they switch their AIS off? Well, we've just bought 26 new Protector drones, licenced to fly in European airspace and piloted from RAF Waddington. These powerful albatrosses can glide over our fishing grounds, fitted with radar and sensors that can detect and match physical signatures with AIS transmissions, and any vessels with AIS turned off can be closely filmed and photographed and their position legally recorded. As the Express points out, this is exactly the sort of technology that the EU has been championing for African fishing grounds.

One of the RAF's 26 new Protectors

Even if EU27 nations make difficulties after illegal fishing has been established in handing over skippers for trial or vessels for seizure, the trawlers will remain liable for immediate seizure by the Navy if ever they enter British waters again - meaning illegal fishing will be for many a one-time risk.

All in all, the message is Don't Panic - They're Buggered. 

Reversing Blair's poison legacy

There are still a few changes that Blair made to our ancient democracy that must be undone to restore us to health. Brexit will push things along nicely - not least the re-introduction of proper entry and exit controls that will allow the ONS to sharpen their pencils a little. This week it emerged that we have 240,000 fewer Nigerians in the country than we thought, but 240,000 more Poles.

Project Fear III is starting to gear up after its Summer holiday. It seems the theme de jour is to be terrified EU27 citizens in panic and fleeing Britain pre-Brexit. Ahem. The BBC, Sky News and Channel 4, and any other MSM zombies that can't tell their arses from elbows, actually have no evidence for this at all - it's like them reporting that the thunder and lightning is due to the sky giants fighting over a rusk. But that doesn't stop them reporting fake news these days.

There are two main reasons why more EU27 citizens are leaving the UK than arriving right now. One is the pound's very low exchange rate. You can draw a graph that almost exactly correlates EU27 inwards immigration and the £/€; back when it was €1.45, they were rushing the doors. Now it's €1.08 they're moving to fresher fields.

The other reason they're going is the same reason a Brit I knew here has gone home - the grey economy. Now that UK citizens in Europe and EU27 citizens in the UK must show how they get their income, a few thousands or tens of thousands who have slipped under the tax net, or who make or supplement their incomes with illegal work including prostitution are being exposed to the extent that they're packing it in and going home. Good.

And has the NHS collapsed like they said it would? Has it horsefeathers. Here's why -

UK transport planning - post Brexit

For the past forty years, Europe's transport network has evolved on a spoke and hub basis for upgrades, new infrastructure and prioritisation. The hub is somewhere around Frankfurt, with a sort of Zone 1 extending to the Netherlands and Berlin. The rest of us are on the spokes. It's all part of a huge 'transport corridor' masterplan developed by the EU under the 'Tentec' badge. The UK has gone from Airstrip One to Euroroute E15.

The plan's corridors include road, rail and sea routes and it has led, as I have previously posted, to the absurdity of a container from China to Munich taking eleven days longer via Rotterdam or Hamburg than it would need to travel if transshipped at an Adriatic terminal. This is largely due to the route masterplan having been corrupted by the power of national interests rather than being designed on economic, or even ecological, grounds.

Thus the entire HS1 / HS2 concepts are integral parts of an EU transport masterplan, a masterplan that for forty years has set in steel, stone and concrete the EU hub and spoke network. It has less to do with reduced journey times or British economic or business interests than with forced Euro integration. As such, we must welcome the government review, which must now view the UK's transport planning from a fresh perspective.

AEP in the Telegraph cogently dissects why we must now do the same for ports - the predominance of Dover in truck movements, which have grown from 14% to around 30% of UK-EU trade since the early 1990s, has left us wide open to EU blockade (though AEP politely doesn't use that term). Saint Greta would deprecate the waste and pollution of (as AEP writes) trucking Scotch Whisky to a ferry at Dover rather than via a container from the Tyne.

Now that we're no longer under the boot-heel of the EU's transport planners, we can take pointless freight off the roads by better use of container ports, eliminate Romanian and Polish truckers with their dodgy LHD rigs by using ro-ro trailers (hauled by UK rigs on UK roads) and use the Chunnel for what it's meant - a thrumming artery for containerised freight, not a luxury passenger route for our bloated Gauleiters to shuttle back and forth from the Chancellery in Brussels. 

To our transport experts - I'm happy to be corrected on any of the above in the comments. 

G7 Who?

The heads of government gathering for the G7 this week will be familiar with one another; seasoned politicians all they are closely attuned to each-others' domestic standing, approvals and prospects. There will be private commiserations for Italy's Conte, who against early expectations has proven capable. Next year the seven will have to welcome (probably) Prime Minister Salvini.

But hold on, you say. In all those photo calls there are not seven but nine grinning ninnies - who are the two extras? They are, of course, the comedy duo from the EU. Like the smelly kids from the local dysfunctional family with the alcoholic parents, they just have to be invited to other childrens' birthday parties out of common decency (but Mum! Why do they have to come? They never bring presents..) . The duo don't of course understand stuff such as democracy and elections, so all such talk goes over their heads, but they will dutifully stand at either end of the elected heads of government photo-call line-up like bureaucrat bookends and gurn at the camera as though they were normal.

Except this year there will be only one. One bookend is having his sciatica removed or something. But at least the real politicians will recognise the other one - which will not be the case next year.

Toronto 2020. "You're the Presidents of what? Sorry, Lady, you're not on my list, and neither is this little guy.. see we've got Canada, the US, the UK, Japan, Italy, Germany and France right there, and the drunken guy and his pet monkey are probably doing some photocopying somewhere .. they're not coming? You're the new drunken guy? .. er, I mean Lady?..OK let me make a call ..."

Defending Journalism

Years ago membership of the NUJ came with a declaration that the applicant would report fairly and impartially, without omission, distortion or misrepresentation. I've no idea whether it's still there but I think it improbable, given that much national 'journalism' in the UK is now openly partial, and extremist polemicists from Owen Jones to Yaxley-Lemon now masquerade as journalists.

A piece in the Guardian has a BBC film crew complaining that they were shouted at by objectors who called them "BBC paedo scum" and "fake news wankers". Fair comment, I would have thought. The BBC's problem lies in its dishonesty; broadsheet papers still distinguish between news reporting and Op-Ed and Polemic pieces; the BBC still pretends that all of its news output is just news reporting, when eight out of ten viewers and listeners know this to be false. And they did act institutionally to actively hide the activities of several child sex abusers they sheltered, and you only have to read a few posts down to find a prime example of Newsnight fake news.

Unfortunately for the BBC, which has now proven itself as the PR department of the new pro-globalist, metropolitan, privileged, elitist establishment and political class, a journalistic reputation is like virginity; once it's gone, it's gone. There is no way back for the BBC and I expect, once Brexit is over, a sustained campaign to decline to renew the BBC's charter in 2027, allowing them time to develop a pay-to-view or commercial model in good time for the ending of the licence fee in seven years time.

The true test for the BBC, and one that it failed spectacularly, was the mass child sex abuse in our old industrial towns and cities that went on almost openly for many years. Sure, the BBC, like the police, social services, pub landlords and local papers knew all about it - but didn't think it worth reporting. Not, I think, as many of you will believe because of the BBC's partiality towards a certain faith group, but because the BBC, in common with the police and local government, simply didn't think that the lives of poor working-class children were worth much. Plus ça change.

I miss my old drinking chum Sandy Fawkes. Not only did she report the Yom Kippur war and cross the continental USA with a mass murderer, her proudest accomplishment was getting an unpopular story run. Back when she was working for the Daily Express in the Lubianka days. The killing of Maria Colwell by her stepfather was doing the rounds of Fleet Street, but none of the papers was biting. Her editor killed the story saying "no one's interested in reading about some slum kid getting killed". Sandy had a stand-up blazing row with him and was ready to walk. Her passion and indignation persuaded him that there just might be some public interest there, ran her piece and the rest is history. That was the job of newspapers. That was the job of journalists. Sandy's Telegraph Obit actually understates her character. Emily Maitlis and Cathy Newman are talentless pygmies in comparison.

Steady in the comments please - usual restrictions apply.

Sandy in the French, about 2003

Hammond beware; leaking ex-ministers should be jailed

During the remainiacs' long campaign of sabotage and attrition from inside government against Brexit, they made full use of an often willing and compliant civil service in creating material to support their Project Fear narrative. Such, we suspect, was the Yellowhammer file, a document that has Hammond's Treasury all over it. Yellowhammer was a scare too far. Sunday's papers reported that even civil service hearts weren't really in it, so absurd and far-fetched were some of the inventions. The May-sanctioned semi-official leakers from Cabinet clearly decided at the time that the thing was just too ludicrous to be credibly leaked.

And so Mr Hammond, it seems, was left with this unused carefully constructed work of semi-fiction. All that creative energy to no end. Until it seems the last few days, when a copy was mysteriously left in a Whitehall pub used by journalists. Mr Hammond has denied that he was responsible, and we must believe him.

However, if Mr Hammond should ever be tempted to leak any other cabinet documents, or material that he is bound both by his privy-council oath and the Official Secrets Act not to disclose, he should be aware that this is not a government inclined to forgiveness, and any such actions could leave him banged up in Belmarsh.