My Solution to the Fishing Dispute

 

Apparently, the issue that is driving Britain and France towards a full-on trade war is whether a pitiful number, 56 I understand, of small French fishing boats are entitled to fish in our coastal waters.  The qualification for renewing fishing rights, post Brexit, is childishly simple – prove that you have fished there before, for only a single day in the last few years, and we will renew your permit. The majority of French fishermen have found the low bar of qualification easy to surmount but a few applications have been refused.  From a French point of view, refusing a fishing permit is a prima facie breach of the Brexit Trade agreement.  From our point of view, permits have been refused only when the applicant is unable to prove that they are qualified in the first place.  The resulting feud is a pissing contest, “par excellence.”  If the consequences of escalation were not so serious, it would be very easy to laugh.  Macron, having marched his adoring electorate to the top of the hill, is not going to back down now and, from a British point of view, concession on such a nit-picking and economically insignificant point as this could prejudice our negotiating position on more important matters in the future. It will take a grand gesture, by one side or the other, to save face and move forward.  Sometimes only a bold and breath-taking “coup de theatre” will do.

Looking back on my time in the “Green Ink” environment of my previous post, I remember being startled by a security assessment on the potential future Naval Attaché for one of our Embassies overseas.  The security assessment had been submitted to my boss in Intelligence for his approval as the final arbiter in these matters.  My experience in security vetting was strictly limited to having been the subject but I expected the narrative reports I was about to check would have covered the usual ground of financial probity, political leanings, potential blackmail through homosexuality, honesty, drinking habits, gambling, debt etc, all the things that would make a potential spy stand out rather like Kim Philby didn’t.  I was, therefore surprised to read the single sentence assessment of character which had been signed by an Admiral – “I know this man!”  This indeed was a grand statement with at least two reputations standing on just four words.

It now occurs to me that little Emmanuel could learn something from this that could be helpful in resolving the dispute.  All he needs to do is to write to Boris with a bold statement, like the aforementioned Admiral, that he knows all these jolly fishermen personally and is confident that they are all good an honest “Jacques.”  Boris would have no alternative, as a gentleman, but to accept his counterpart’s word, grant the outstanding permits accordingly, and we could all then live happily ever after. Of course, zut alors, if the Macron declaration should later prove to have been economical with the truth, then that would be a matter for France to deal with and explain to the world.