The French would be well advised to back down, they've probably got enough to save face. If they continue with the blockade nonsense, Mon Dieu
That's not a compromise.
It's the status as at last Wednesday of the continuing process.
IMO if Jersey shift their position from "we are pursuing the process according to the evidence provided" that will invite the French govt to continue with their bullying.
It stops here, is taken through the dispute process, or the farm has been sold.
Fair enough. I agree that we need to stand firm. France cannot be seen to profit from this aggression
Sky report just now had a Jersey fisherman say that if France closes the ports they land their fish at next tuesday he backs Boris in taking on France
600 years on from Agincourt and we've not made a huge amount of progress in Anglo-French relations, have we?
Wouldn’t the Jersaymen, at the time of Agincourt, been backing France
No - Jersey was part of the English Crown by then - they split from Normandy when King John lost Normandy. He offered Jersey and Guernsey etc their special status in return for choosing his team which is why the Channel Islands are unique in considering John a “good king”….
Although Jersey paid for it heavily until after the Napoleonic wars with constant attacks and invasions by the French.
Culturally there is a long affinity with Normandy including the language being Jersey Norman French and long practical relations with Brittany (itself pretty independent from France for a long time) but very little love for the rest of France.
As for TSE’s comment about collaborating- I’m sure, brave lad that he is, he would have been operating a resistance cell hiding out in the huge forests and mountain ranges away from the twenty-odd thousand German troops in a 45 square mile island. I salute you!
I'm not expecting a full Maquis style insurgency.
Just don't roll out the red carpet for the occupiers.
I mean I've watched the documentary The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society which was an accurate representation of life in the Channel Islands during WWII.
Accurate about Guernsey, nothing has changed there since!!
Sky report just now had a Jersey fisherman say that if France closes the ports they land their fish at next tuesday he backs Boris in taking on France
600 years on from Agincourt and we've not made a huge amount of progress in Anglo-French relations, have we?
Wouldn’t the Jersaymen, at the time of Agincourt, been backing France
No - Jersey was part of the English Crown by then - they split from Normandy when King John lost Normandy. He offered Jersey and Guernsey etc their special status in return for choosing his team which is why the Channel Islands are unique in considering John a “good king”….
Although Jersey paid for it heavily until after the Napoleonic wars with constant attacks and invasions by the French.
Culturally there is a long affinity with Normandy including the language being Jersey Norman French and long practical relations with Brittany (itself pretty independent from France for a long time) but very little love for the rest of France.
As for TSE’s comment about collaborating- I’m sure, brave lad that he is, he would have been operating a resistance cell hiding out in the huge forests and mountain ranges away from the twenty-odd thousand German troops in a 45 square mile island. I salute you!
I'm not expecting a full Maquis style insurgency.
Just don't roll out the red carpet for the occupiers.
I mean I've watched the documentary The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society which was an accurate representation of life in the Channel Islands during WWII.
Alderney folk were offered the chance to evacuate in 1940 and they all did. Shot most of the farm animals and dogs and all sailed off, IIRC, to Glasgow. AIUI the cats hid and reappeared eventually!
Brilliant, both @CarlottaVance and @boulay detailed analysis re the French case is 'they don't have one' as opposed to them not finding out whether they actually do have a case or not.
And we get ridiculous responses of 'well you should have kept your log book for a boat you stopped owning up to 5 years ago'
How many people here keep their car registration details of a car they sold years ago and I assume a log book goes with the boat and is a more substantial document. Actually I don't know that but do you Carlotta or Boulay?
This is just nationalist nonsense; we are right because we are British and the Foreigner's are wrong. None of us here know the facts.
How is that a ridiculous response? You're expected to keep tax records for seven years, IIRC.
Well I answered that.
a) The log book probably goes with the boat.
b) Do you keep your old car records?
c) Is there a requirement to keep records of a boat you have sold?
And of course this was just one example of how people arguing here have no idea what the French case is. They just assume they are in the wrong. They may be. They may not. It is bizarre though to just assume they don't have a case.
I’m no expert on fishing, but if I wanted to sell, for example, an aeroplane or a classic racing car, there are sure as hell protocols and discussions around documentation that are worked through at the time of sale. Some documents will remain with the vehicle, others remain with the original owner, and others with various authorities and third parties, setting out everyone’s future rights and obligations.
Why would a fishing boat be any different? If he’s selling his boat for scrap and upgrading to a new vessel, he’ll want to keep the fishing rights associated with it. If he’s selling his boat to another fisherman, and upgrading to a new boat, there will need to be an agreement between the buyer, seller and fishing authorities, as to future fishing rights of the two boats. The buyer (and his lawyer) sure as hell wants to know if he’s buying a boat, or buying fishing rights.
Also (and here I do confess ignorance) if you need the old log book, why not just go and get it, and borrow it from the new owner? Then make a copy? Nip round St Malo, use your phonecam, Le Bingo
How hard is that? Or have these boats all weirdly disappeared to Papeete?
This sort of 'papers please' pettyfogging mentality led to the Windrush scandal and to countless other injustices over the piece. There could be valid reasons why the fisherfolk can't produce the exact docs required per the exact wording of some form or other. Agreements need to be implemented according to their spirit not simply their letter. It's a myth put about by jobbing lawyers that they don't. Are we behaving well here? Or are we nitpicking? I honestly don't know and I'm pretty skeptical of anybody who says they do - unless they write a really good post explaining why France has no case PLUS they say without caveat that Johnson is being a dick on the NI protocol. This is the magic combo, weighty looking post slagging off Macron on the fish plus demonstrated intellectual integrity. That'd nail it for me. I could get off the wheel and have some cheese.
This sort of attitude @kinabalu will get you deported, at least. For simply suggesting there might just be two sides to an argument I have been told I hate my country.
I think calling "papers, please" pettufogging is fascinating and revealing rhetoric.
So, then, we should not have to have an Insurance Certificate or an MOT Cert for our cars, and just be allowed to drive in them by asserting that we do have the paperwork?
I'm incline to ask @kinabalu to turn up at the local airport to pilot the next passenger flight out, and see if harrumphing about checks on "papers", rather than providing any, suffices for getting into the cockpit.
Licenses are important in this case, because it is a license to make a livelihood, and it is in the ratified agreement that historic evidence of participation is required. It is notable that the local French fishermen based near Jersey are amongst those asserting that the ones not issued licenses do not have a history of participation.
That's all, really.
The French fishermen are in exactly the position of people who could not demonstrate lost earnings for COVID purposes because they had been working cash in hand. Hoist with their own
That's exactly right. If there were good arguments for the absence of records, the French would be making them. But there aren't so instead they are trying to turn this into an abstract argument about punishing perfidious Albion.
I wonder if the situation is something like this -
- Previously enforcement was a slack on small boats. They just did their thing. - When Brexit came in, the new rules are actually being enforced. - A number of people who didn't actually have the fishing rights, or had them and didn't exercise them are now being asked to sign up to formal licensing and have got a bit stuck.
I am reminded of the following - before Brexit, you could bring in pretty much unlimited amount of wine from France, as long as it was for personal use. Customs and Excise fought a long and losing battle to stop this.
Post Brexit, they introduced small personal allowances and enforced them.
Certain small UK wine dealers were used to drive a transit van over to see their mates in the various vineyards and coming back with multiple metric tons of high end wine. Which they could then sell at a keen price, with an increased profit.
This trade has now come to a screeching halt.
Unfair, or proper license enforcement? They were certainly abusing the "for personal use" provisions.
Proper licence enforcement in both cases. The issue is not that the laws are now being enforced but that they were not before. Don't pass laws that you either cannot or choose not to enforce.
Totally agreed. If a law doesn't need to be enforced, it shouldn't be the law.
Otherwise you're just giving a competitive advantage to whoever is prepared to break the law.
More dangerously to my mind you are giving the authorities licence to pick and choose how and when they enforce it to serve their own ends.
Although I agree with the point you make there Richard I don't agree with your original point of not passing laws you choose not to enforce, although I see how one might lead to the other.
With the exception of road traffic laws which the Police do tend to enforce according to their own judgement (wisely usually) we do have a habit otherwise of enforcing laws in this country (a jobs worth attitude) regardless of the circumstances and where common sense should prevail. This has the downside of making it difficult to pass effective laws so some potentially good laws don't get passed because of all the potential exceptions and also laws being enforced when clearly it wasn't meant for a particular purpose. A good example might be the metrication rules for shops which should be obeyed by supermarkets, but if a market stallholder wants to sell in pounds and ounces, then fine. I mean who are they harming?
I have experienced the common sense approach by traffic cops on 3 occasions and the nonsense of a parking fine for doing the right thing but not complying with a technicality whereas if I had done the wrong thing, the technicality wouldn't have been needed and I would have been fine, but the rules are the rules.
And just to annoy @MaxPB because he obviously think I am some raving Francophile I think the French are far better at this than us. Plenty of rules that are just waived when not necessary.
Having laws that are enforced at the whim of the police is a recipe for discrimination and corruption.
I can see the point but I don't think that happens or when it does the police who do it should be prosecuted. We are talking about what actually happens here already. I haven't suggested anything radical. As has already been pointed out the police already do use their discretion with regard to traffic laws and drug laws as I believe they should and I'm sure there are other cases as well. I have no objection to them doing so if appropriate. I think they should. I don't think it is a recipe for discrimination or corruption as If you break the law you can not and should not rely on the police letting you off and if they do show corruption or discrimination, they should be punished appropriately.
A good example of how this could be done better is comparing the travel requirement of the UK, France and Portugal re Covid (the only countries I have travelled to and from in this time). None of the requirements of any of the countries are enforceable from a practical point of view. I could bore for hours as to how most of the proof you have to provide is unverifiable and nobody actually puts any effort into verifying it. It is all done on trust. So the French and Portuguese recognise this by what they require you to fill in. The UK doesn't by making it so much more complicated, yet equally as leaky. Basically for all 3 there are rules. Honest people check the rules and obey them, which is the majority and they achieve what they want in a costly manner.
Pass laws, enforce them where necessary. Prosecute the police if they abuse that. It is what we do at the moment anyway. Just be more flexible.
Having unenforceable laws is also a very bad idea, but if the police are going to be selective in their application of the law there better be a very full set of guidelines somewhere as to how they go about it or else certain groups are going to find themselves pulled over or stoped by the police far more often than others.
Oh, wait that already happens...
We have plenty of unenforceable laws. See my other post. You pass the law and the vast majority then obeys them which is what you want to achieve. That is the point. And no there is not a full set of guidelines, see my post re speeding and the police driving course. However we all know the unofficial guidelines, but we have no excuse if we break the law and are pulled over.
Re the abuse by the police of certain groups - yes it happens and why do we know that? Well because it happens inappropriately and complaints are made.
We seem to be ignoring this is what actually happens in a normal society. The first paragraph is what we want to happen, the second paragraph is an unacceptable consequence that we try to stop.
Sky report just now had a Jersey fisherman say that if France closes the ports they land their fish at next tuesday he backs Boris in taking on France
600 years on from Agincourt and we've not made a huge amount of progress in Anglo-French relations, have we?
Wouldn’t the Jersaymen, at the time of Agincourt, been backing France
No - Jersey was part of the English Crown by then - they split from Normandy when King John lost Normandy. He offered Jersey and Guernsey etc their special status in return for choosing his team which is why the Channel Islands are unique in considering John a “good king”….
Although Jersey paid for it heavily until after the Napoleonic wars with constant attacks and invasions by the French.
Culturally there is a long affinity with Normandy including the language being Jersey Norman French and long practical relations with Brittany (itself pretty independent from France for a long time) but very little love for the rest of France.
As for TSE’s comment about collaborating- I’m sure, brave lad that he is, he would have been operating a resistance cell hiding out in the huge forests and mountain ranges away from the twenty-odd thousand German troops in a 45 square mile island. I salute you!
I'm not expecting a full Maquis style insurgency.
Just don't roll out the red carpet for the occupiers.
I mean I've watched the documentary The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society which was an accurate representation of life in the Channel Islands during WWII.
Accurate about Guernsey, nothing has changed there since!!
Brilliant, both @CarlottaVance and @boulay detailed analysis re the French case is 'they don't have one' as opposed to them not finding out whether they actually do have a case or not.
And we get ridiculous responses of 'well you should have kept your log book for a boat you stopped owning up to 5 years ago'
How many people here keep their car registration details of a car they sold years ago and I assume a log book goes with the boat and is a more substantial document. Actually I don't know that but do you Carlotta or Boulay?
This is just nationalist nonsense; we are right because we are British and the Foreigner's are wrong. None of us here know the facts.
How is that a ridiculous response? You're expected to keep tax records for seven years, IIRC.
Well I answered that.
a) The log book probably goes with the boat.
b) Do you keep your old car records?
c) Is there a requirement to keep records of a boat you have sold?
And of course this was just one example of how people arguing here have no idea what the French case is. They just assume they are in the wrong. They may be. They may not. It is bizarre though to just assume they don't have a case.
I’m no expert on fishing, but if I wanted to sell, for example, an aeroplane or a classic racing car, there are sure as hell protocols and discussions around documentation that are worked through at the time of sale. Some documents will remain with the vehicle, others remain with the original owner, and others with various authorities and third parties, setting out everyone’s future rights and obligations.
Why would a fishing boat be any different? If he’s selling his boat for scrap and upgrading to a new vessel, he’ll want to keep the fishing rights associated with it. If he’s selling his boat to another fisherman, and upgrading to a new boat, there will need to be an agreement between the buyer, seller and fishing authorities, as to future fishing rights of the two boats. The buyer (and his lawyer) sure as hell wants to know if he’s buying a boat, or buying fishing rights.
Also (and here I do confess ignorance) if you need the old log book, why not just go and get it, and borrow it from the new owner? Then make a copy? Nip round St Malo, use your phonecam, Le Bingo
How hard is that? Or have these boats all weirdly disappeared to Papeete?
This sort of 'papers please' pettyfogging mentality led to the Windrush scandal and to countless other injustices over the piece. There could be valid reasons why the fisherfolk can't produce the exact docs required per the exact wording of some form or other. Agreements need to be implemented according to their spirit not simply their letter. It's a myth put about by jobbing lawyers that they don't. Are we behaving well here? Or are we nitpicking? I honestly don't know and I'm pretty skeptical of anybody who says they do - unless they write a really good post explaining why France has no case PLUS they say without caveat that Johnson is being a dick on the NI protocol. This is the magic combo, weighty looking post slagging off Macron on the fish plus demonstrated intellectual integrity. That'd nail it for me. I could get off the wheel and have some cheese.
This sort of attitude @kinabalu will get you deported, at least. For simply suggesting there might just be two sides to an argument I have been told I hate my country.
I think calling "papers, please" pettufogging is fascinating and revealing rhetoric.
So, then, we should not have to have an Insurance Certificate or an MOT Cert for our cars, and just be allowed to drive in them by asserting that we do have the paperwork?
I'm incline to ask @kinabalu to turn up at the local airport to pilot the next passenger flight out, and see if harrumphing about checks on "papers", rather than providing any, suffices for getting into the cockpit.
Licenses are important in this case, because it is a license to make a livelihood, and it is in the ratified agreement that historic evidence of participation is required. It is notable that the local French fishermen based near Jersey are amongst those asserting that the ones not issued licenses do not have a history of participation.
That's all, really.
The French fishermen are in exactly the position of people who could not demonstrate lost earnings for COVID purposes because they had been working cash in hand. Hoist with their own
That's exactly right. If there were good arguments for the absence of records, the French would be making them. But there aren't so instead they are trying to turn this into an abstract argument about punishing perfidious Albion.
I wonder if the situation is something like this -
- Previously enforcement was a slack on small boats. They just did their thing. - When Brexit came in, the new rules are actually being enforced. - A number of people who didn't actually have the fishing rights, or had them and didn't exercise them are now being asked to sign up to formal licensing and have got a bit stuck.
I am reminded of the following - before Brexit, you could bring in pretty much unlimited amount of wine from France, as long as it was for personal use. Customs and Excise fought a long and losing battle to stop this.
Post Brexit, they introduced small personal allowances and enforced them.
Certain small UK wine dealers were used to drive a transit van over to see their mates in the various vineyards and coming back with multiple metric tons of high end wine. Which they could then sell at a keen price, with an increased profit.
This trade has now come to a screeching halt.
Unfair, or proper license enforcement? They were certainly abusing the "for personal use" provisions.
Proper licence enforcement in both cases. The issue is not that the laws are now being enforced but that they were not before. Don't pass laws that you either cannot or choose not to enforce.
Totally agreed. If a law doesn't need to be enforced, it shouldn't be the law.
Otherwise you're just giving a competitive advantage to whoever is prepared to break the law.
More dangerously to my mind you are giving the authorities licence to pick and choose how and when they enforce it to serve their own ends.
Although I agree with the point you make there Richard I don't agree with your original point of not passing laws you choose not to enforce, although I see how one might lead to the other.
With the exception of road traffic laws which the Police do tend to enforce according to their own judgement (wisely usually) we do have a habit otherwise of enforcing laws in this country (a jobs worth attitude) regardless of the circumstances and where common sense should prevail. This has the downside of making it difficult to pass effective laws so some potentially good laws don't get passed because of all the potential exceptions and also laws being enforced when clearly it wasn't meant for a particular purpose. A good example might be the metrication rules for shops which should be obeyed by supermarkets, but if a market stallholder wants to sell in pounds and ounces, then fine. I mean who are they harming?
I have experienced the common sense approach by traffic cops on 3 occasions and the nonsense of a parking fine for doing the right thing but not complying with a technicality whereas if I had done the wrong thing, the technicality wouldn't have been needed and I would have been fine, but the rules are the rules.
And just to annoy @MaxPB because he obviously think I am some raving Francophile I think the French are far better at this than us. Plenty of rules that are just waived when not necessary.
Having laws that are enforced at the whim of the police is a recipe for discrimination and corruption.
I can see the point but I don't think that happens or when it does the police who do it should be prosecuted. We are talking about what actually happens here already. I haven't suggested anything radical. As has already been pointed out the police already do use their discretion with regard to traffic laws and drug laws as I believe they should and I'm sure there are other cases as well. I have no objection to them doing so if appropriate. I think they should. I don't think it is a recipe for discrimination or corruption as If you break the law you can not and should not rely on the police letting you off and if they do show corruption or discrimination, they should be punished appropriately.
A good example of how this could be done better is comparing the travel requirement of the UK, France and Portugal re Covid (the only countries I have travelled to and from in this time). None of the requirements of any of the countries are enforceable from a practical point of view. I could bore for hours as to how most of the proof you have to provide is unverifiable and nobody actually puts any effort into verifying it. It is all done on trust. So the French and Portuguese recognise this by what they require you to fill in. The UK doesn't by making it so much more complicated, yet equally as leaky. Basically for all 3 there are rules. Honest people check the rules and obey them, which is the majority and they achieve what they want in a costly manner.
Pass laws, enforce them where necessary. Prosecute the police if they abuse that. It is what we do at the moment anyway. Just be more flexible.
Having unenforceable laws is also a very bad idea, but if the police are going to be selective in their application of the law there better be a very full set of guidelines somewhere as to how they go about it or else certain groups are going to find themselves pulled over or stoped by the police far more often than others.
Oh, wait that already happens...
We have plenty of unenforceable laws. See my other post. You pass the law and the vast majority then obeys them which is what you want to achieve. That is the point. And no there is not a full set of guidelines, see my post re speeding and the police driving course. However we all know the unofficial guidelines, but we have no excuse if we break the law and are pulled over.
Re the abuse by the police of certain groups - yes it happens and why do we know that? Well because it happens inappropriately and complaints are made.
We seem to be ignoring this is what actually happens in a normal society. The first paragraph is what we want to happen, the second paragraph is an unacceptable consequence that we try to stop.
Just out of interest I am wondering what all these people who want to enforce laws regardless think of the following.
I had a carnet for display and computer equipment. The weight was not filled in as it really wasn't relevant or possible to do in any sensible way. The amounts was required however. It became apparent that the French customer officer did not give two hoots as long as a figure was put in. So I made up a figure in front of him. I was happy, he was happy and the number was wrong. Should I have been prosecuted?
Sky report just now had a Jersey fisherman say that if France closes the ports they land their fish at next tuesday he backs Boris in taking on France
600 years on from Agincourt and we've not made a huge amount of progress in Anglo-French relations, have we?
Wouldn’t the Jersaymen, at the time of Agincourt, been backing France
No - Jersey was part of the English Crown by then - they split from Normandy when King John lost Normandy. He offered Jersey and Guernsey etc their special status in return for choosing his team which is why the Channel Islands are unique in considering John a “good king”….
Although Jersey paid for it heavily until after the Napoleonic wars with constant attacks and invasions by the French.
Culturally there is a long affinity with Normandy including the language being Jersey Norman French and long practical relations with Brittany (itself pretty independent from France for a long time) but very little love for the rest of France.
As for TSE’s comment about collaborating- I’m sure, brave lad that he is, he would have been operating a resistance cell hiding out in the huge forests and mountain ranges away from the twenty-odd thousand German troops in a 45 square mile island. I salute you!
The truth is that there were plenty of collaborators and a good number of resistance everywhere to both Nazis and Communists as well as many just trying to keep their heads down for a quiet life. England would have been the same. The same goes for pretty much all of the places we conquered too.
Brilliant, both @CarlottaVance and @boulay detailed analysis re the French case is 'they don't have one' as opposed to them not finding out whether they actually do have a case or not.
And we get ridiculous responses of 'well you should have kept your log book for a boat you stopped owning up to 5 years ago'
How many people here keep their car registration details of a car they sold years ago and I assume a log book goes with the boat and is a more substantial document. Actually I don't know that but do you Carlotta or Boulay?
This is just nationalist nonsense; we are right because we are British and the Foreigner's are wrong. None of us here know the facts.
How is that a ridiculous response? You're expected to keep tax records for seven years, IIRC.
Well I answered that.
a) The log book probably goes with the boat.
b) Do you keep your old car records?
c) Is there a requirement to keep records of a boat you have sold?
And of course this was just one example of how people arguing here have no idea what the French case is. They just assume they are in the wrong. They may be. They may not. It is bizarre though to just assume they don't have a case.
I’m no expert on fishing, but if I wanted to sell, for example, an aeroplane or a classic racing car, there are sure as hell protocols and discussions around documentation that are worked through at the time of sale. Some documents will remain with the vehicle, others remain with the original owner, and others with various authorities and third parties, setting out everyone’s future rights and obligations.
Why would a fishing boat be any different? If he’s selling his boat for scrap and upgrading to a new vessel, he’ll want to keep the fishing rights associated with it. If he’s selling his boat to another fisherman, and upgrading to a new boat, there will need to be an agreement between the buyer, seller and fishing authorities, as to future fishing rights of the two boats. The buyer (and his lawyer) sure as hell wants to know if he’s buying a boat, or buying fishing rights.
Also (and here I do confess ignorance) if you need the old log book, why not just go and get it, and borrow it from the new owner? Then make a copy? Nip round St Malo, use your phonecam, Le Bingo
How hard is that? Or have these boats all weirdly disappeared to Papeete?
This sort of 'papers please' pettyfogging mentality led to the Windrush scandal and to countless other injustices over the piece. There could be valid reasons why the fisherfolk can't produce the exact docs required per the exact wording of some form or other. Agreements need to be implemented according to their spirit not simply their letter. It's a myth put about by jobbing lawyers that they don't. Are we behaving well here? Or are we nitpicking? I honestly don't know and I'm pretty skeptical of anybody who says they do - unless they write a really good post explaining why France has no case PLUS they say without caveat that Johnson is being a dick on the NI protocol. This is the magic combo, weighty looking post slagging off Macron on the fish plus demonstrated intellectual integrity. That'd nail it for me. I could get off the wheel and have some cheese.
This sort of attitude @kinabalu will get you deported, at least. For simply suggesting there might just be two sides to an argument I have been told I hate my country.
I think calling "papers, please" pettufogging is fascinating and revealing rhetoric.
So, then, we should not have to have an Insurance Certificate or an MOT Cert for our cars, and just be allowed to drive in them by asserting that we do have the paperwork?
I'm incline to ask @kinabalu to turn up at the local airport to pilot the next passenger flight out, and see if harrumphing about checks on "papers", rather than providing any, suffices for getting into the cockpit.
Licenses are important in this case, because it is a license to make a livelihood, and it is in the ratified agreement that historic evidence of participation is required. It is notable that the local French fishermen based near Jersey are amongst those asserting that the ones not issued licenses do not have a history of participation.
That's all, really.
The French fishermen are in exactly the position of people who could not demonstrate lost earnings for COVID purposes because they had been working cash in hand. Hoist with their own
That's exactly right. If there were good arguments for the absence of records, the French would be making them. But there aren't so instead they are trying to turn this into an abstract argument about punishing perfidious Albion.
I wonder if the situation is something like this -
- Previously enforcement was a slack on small boats. They just did their thing. - When Brexit came in, the new rules are actually being enforced. - A number of people who didn't actually have the fishing rights, or had them and didn't exercise them are now being asked to sign up to formal licensing and have got a bit stuck.
I am reminded of the following - before Brexit, you could bring in pretty much unlimited amount of wine from France, as long as it was for personal use. Customs and Excise fought a long and losing battle to stop this.
Post Brexit, they introduced small personal allowances and enforced them.
Certain small UK wine dealers were used to drive a transit van over to see their mates in the various vineyards and coming back with multiple metric tons of high end wine. Which they could then sell at a keen price, with an increased profit.
This trade has now come to a screeching halt.
Unfair, or proper license enforcement? They were certainly abusing the "for personal use" provisions.
Proper licence enforcement in both cases. The issue is not that the laws are now being enforced but that they were not before. Don't pass laws that you either cannot or choose not to enforce.
Totally agreed. If a law doesn't need to be enforced, it shouldn't be the law.
Otherwise you're just giving a competitive advantage to whoever is prepared to break the law.
More dangerously to my mind you are giving the authorities licence to pick and choose how and when they enforce it to serve their own ends.
Although I agree with the point you make there Richard I don't agree with your original point of not passing laws you choose not to enforce, although I see how one might lead to the other.
With the exception of road traffic laws which the Police do tend to enforce according to their own judgement (wisely usually) we do have a habit otherwise of enforcing laws in this country (a jobs worth attitude) regardless of the circumstances and where common sense should prevail. This has the downside of making it difficult to pass effective laws so some potentially good laws don't get passed because of all the potential exceptions and also laws being enforced when clearly it wasn't meant for a particular purpose. A good example might be the metrication rules for shops which should be obeyed by supermarkets, but if a market stallholder wants to sell in pounds and ounces, then fine. I mean who are they harming?
I have experienced the common sense approach by traffic cops on 3 occasions and the nonsense of a parking fine for doing the right thing but not complying with a technicality whereas if I had done the wrong thing, the technicality wouldn't have been needed and I would have been fine, but the rules are the rules.
And just to annoy @MaxPB because he obviously think I am some raving Francophile I think the French are far better at this than us. Plenty of rules that are just waived when not necessary.
The issue is really very simple AIUI
As a member of the CFA you were (subject to quotas) entitled to fish in another member’s territorial waters*
*However* you were required AS A CONDITION of doing so to have a GPS tracker and to retain that data. This was part of quota compliance enforcement. That data was “attached” to the licence (it’s the licence that is relevant not the physical boat).
Any French fishing boat that was legitimately fishing (ie in compliance with quotas and in compliance with the equipment rules) would have that data and could therefore easily provide proof that they had been fished in Jersey waters in 5 years to 2016.
Any one who is unwilling to supply the data was either (a) not fishing in Jersey waters; (b) not fishing *legitimately* in Jersey waters; or (c) has another really good excuse that no one has disclosed yet
The French government must know this, which is why they are resorting to threats rather than solving behind the scenes.
* TBH I don’t recall whether it it’s territorial or exclusive economic zone waters, but the rules applied to the waters around Jersey whichever they were
Brilliant, both @CarlottaVance and @boulay detailed analysis re the French case is 'they don't have one' as opposed to them not finding out whether they actually do have a case or not.
And we get ridiculous responses of 'well you should have kept your log book for a boat you stopped owning up to 5 years ago'
How many people here keep their car registration details of a car they sold years ago and I assume a log book goes with the boat and is a more substantial document. Actually I don't know that but do you Carlotta or Boulay?
This is just nationalist nonsense; we are right because we are British and the Foreigner's are wrong. None of us here know the facts.
How is that a ridiculous response? You're expected to keep tax records for seven years, IIRC.
Well I answered that.
a) The log book probably goes with the boat.
b) Do you keep your old car records?
c) Is there a requirement to keep records of a boat you have sold?
And of course this was just one example of how people arguing here have no idea what the French case is. They just assume they are in the wrong. They may be. They may not. It is bizarre though to just assume they don't have a case.
I’m no expert on fishing, but if I wanted to sell, for example, an aeroplane or a classic racing car, there are sure as hell protocols and discussions around documentation that are worked through at the time of sale. Some documents will remain with the vehicle, others remain with the original owner, and others with various authorities and third parties, setting out everyone’s future rights and obligations.
Why would a fishing boat be any different? If he’s selling his boat for scrap and upgrading to a new vessel, he’ll want to keep the fishing rights associated with it. If he’s selling his boat to another fisherman, and upgrading to a new boat, there will need to be an agreement between the buyer, seller and fishing authorities, as to future fishing rights of the two boats. The buyer (and his lawyer) sure as hell wants to know if he’s buying a boat, or buying fishing rights.
Also (and here I do confess ignorance) if you need the old log book, why not just go and get it, and borrow it from the new owner? Then make a copy? Nip round St Malo, use your phonecam, Le Bingo
How hard is that? Or have these boats all weirdly disappeared to Papeete?
This sort of 'papers please' pettyfogging mentality led to the Windrush scandal and to countless other injustices over the piece. There could be valid reasons why the fisherfolk can't produce the exact docs required per the exact wording of some form or other. Agreements need to be implemented according to their spirit not simply their letter. It's a myth put about by jobbing lawyers that they don't. Are we behaving well here? Or are we nitpicking? I honestly don't know and I'm pretty skeptical of anybody who says they do - unless they write a really good post explaining why France has no case PLUS they say without caveat that Johnson is being a dick on the NI protocol. This is the magic combo, weighty looking post slagging off Macron on the fish plus demonstrated intellectual integrity. That'd nail it for me. I could get off the wheel and have some cheese.
This sort of attitude @kinabalu will get you deported, at least. For simply suggesting there might just be two sides to an argument I have been told I hate my country.
I think calling "papers, please" pettufogging is fascinating and revealing rhetoric.
So, then, we should not have to have an Insurance Certificate or an MOT Cert for our cars, and just be allowed to drive in them by asserting that we do have the paperwork?
I'm incline to ask @kinabalu to turn up at the local airport to pilot the next passenger flight out, and see if harrumphing about checks on "papers", rather than providing any, suffices for getting into the cockpit.
Licenses are important in this case, because it is a license to make a livelihood, and it is in the ratified agreement that historic evidence of participation is required. It is notable that the local French fishermen based near Jersey are amongst those asserting that the ones not issued licenses do not have a history of participation.
That's all, really.
The French fishermen are in exactly the position of people who could not demonstrate lost earnings for COVID purposes because they had been working cash in hand. Hoist with their own
That's exactly right. If there were good arguments for the absence of records, the French would be making them. But there aren't so instead they are trying to turn this into an abstract argument about punishing perfidious Albion.
I wonder if the situation is something like this -
- Previously enforcement was a slack on small boats. They just did their thing. - When Brexit came in, the new rules are actually being enforced. - A number of people who didn't actually have the fishing rights, or had them and didn't exercise them are now being asked to sign up to formal licensing and have got a bit stuck.
I am reminded of the following - before Brexit, you could bring in pretty much unlimited amount of wine from France, as long as it was for personal use. Customs and Excise fought a long and losing battle to stop this.
Post Brexit, they introduced small personal allowances and enforced them.
Certain small UK wine dealers were used to drive a transit van over to see their mates in the various vineyards and coming back with multiple metric tons of high end wine. Which they could then sell at a keen price, with an increased profit.
This trade has now come to a screeching halt.
Unfair, or proper license enforcement? They were certainly abusing the "for personal use" provisions.
Proper licence enforcement in both cases. The issue is not that the laws are now being enforced but that they were not before. Don't pass laws that you either cannot or choose not to enforce.
Totally agreed. If a law doesn't need to be enforced, it shouldn't be the law.
Otherwise you're just giving a competitive advantage to whoever is prepared to break the law.
More dangerously to my mind you are giving the authorities licence to pick and choose how and when they enforce it to serve their own ends.
Although I agree with the point you make there Richard I don't agree with your original point of not passing laws you choose not to enforce, although I see how one might lead to the other.
With the exception of road traffic laws which the Police do tend to enforce according to their own judgement (wisely usually) we do have a habit otherwise of enforcing laws in this country (a jobs worth attitude) regardless of the circumstances and where common sense should prevail. This has the downside of making it difficult to pass effective laws so some potentially good laws don't get passed because of all the potential exceptions and also laws being enforced when clearly it wasn't meant for a particular purpose. A good example might be the metrication rules for shops which should be obeyed by supermarkets, but if a market stallholder wants to sell in pounds and ounces, then fine. I mean who are they harming?
I have experienced the common sense approach by traffic cops on 3 occasions and the nonsense of a parking fine for doing the right thing but not complying with a technicality whereas if I had done the wrong thing, the technicality wouldn't have been needed and I would have been fine, but the rules are the rules.
And just to annoy @MaxPB because he obviously think I am some raving Francophile I think the French are far better at this than us. Plenty of rules that are just waived when not necessary.
The issue is really very simple AIUI
As a member of the CFA you were (subject to quotas) entitled to fish in another member’s territorial waters*
*However* you were required AS A CONDITION of doing so to have a GPS tracker and to retain that data. This was part of quota compliance enforcement. That data was “attached” to the licence (it’s the licence that is relevant not the physical boat).
Any French fishing boat that was legitimately fishing (ie in compliance with quotas and in compliance with the equipment rules) would have that data and could therefore easily provide proof that they had been fished in Jersey waters in 5 years to 2016.
Any one who is unwilling to supply the data was either (a) not fishing in Jersey waters; (b) not fishing *legitimately* in Jersey waters; or (c) has another really good excuse that no one has disclosed yet
The French government must know this, which is why they are resorting to threats rather than solving behind the scenes.
* TBH I don’t recall whether it it’s territorial or exclusive economic zone waters, but the rules applied to the waters around Jersey whichever they were
? I'm not arguing about fish anymore. This is a new argument.
Sky report just now had a Jersey fisherman say that if France closes the ports they land their fish at next tuesday he backs Boris in taking on France
600 years on from Agincourt and we've not made a huge amount of progress in Anglo-French relations, have we?
Wouldn’t the Jersaymen, at the time of Agincourt, been backing France
No - Jersey was part of the English Crown by then - they split from Normandy when King John lost Normandy. He offered Jersey and Guernsey etc their special status in return for choosing his team which is why the Channel Islands are unique in considering John a “good king”….
Although Jersey paid for it heavily until after the Napoleonic wars with constant attacks and invasions by the French.
Culturally there is a long affinity with Normandy including the language being Jersey Norman French and long practical relations with Brittany (itself pretty independent from France for a long time) but very little love for the rest of France.
As for TSE’s comment about collaborating- I’m sure, brave lad that he is, he would have been operating a resistance cell hiding out in the huge forests and mountain ranges away from the twenty-odd thousand German troops in a 45 square mile island. I salute you!
The truth is that there were plenty of collaborators and a good number of resistance everywhere to both Nazis and Communists as well as many just trying to keep their heads down for a quiet life. England would have been the same. The same goes for pretty much all of the places we conquered too.
Madeleine Bunting thought the same, based on the study of the Channel Islands under the Nazis. She’s probably right, but the sheer practicalities of resistance on the CI vs mainland France would have been very different, so it’s not really a fair test. At the end of the day people are people, and most just want a quiet life.
I recall Flashman being given some ‘help’ to get his dander up in one of the novels. He wonders later if all the larger than life fearless rogues he meets feel like that all the time. He’s probably right. The SAS types would have resisted, but most would have got on with it, and a bit of quiet grumbling down the pub.
The French would be well advised to back down, they've probably got enough to save face. If they continue with the blockade nonsense, Mon Dieu
Personally, I would cancel all the French fishing licenses and say 'fuck you'.
But that's why I'm not in international statesman.
Which international statesman would you like to be in?
If they choose to, that can be in the strategic plan for 5 years' time.
However, I do not associate Boris with the word "plan", and there are probably bigger fish to fry for now.
Suspending them might be an option at some point, or introducing a French trawler inspection facility at Whitby or Whitehaven, or at the Port of GloucesterWorcesterGoole:.
Comments
I’m not going to be at the Sri Lanka match on Monday, but will be at South Africa next Saturday - place your bets accordingly!
This would be some choke if the Aussies win from here.
@Sandpit WTF is all the shouting about?
I just missed another six typing that!
AIUI the cats hid and reappeared eventually!
Re the abuse by the police of certain groups - yes it happens and why do we know that? Well because it happens inappropriately and complaints are made.
We seem to be ignoring this is what actually happens in a normal society. The first paragraph is what we want to happen, the second paragraph is an unacceptable consequence that we try to stop.
How about Oh dear. How sad. Never mind!
Finch apart, their batting was awful and their bowlers really didn't have much answer to Buttler.
I had a carnet for display and computer equipment. The weight was not filled in as it really wasn't relevant or possible to do in any sensible way. The amounts was required however. It became apparent that the French customer officer did not give two hoots as long as a figure was put in. So I made up a figure in front of him. I was happy, he was happy and the number was wrong. Should I have been prosecuted?
As a member of the CFA you were (subject to quotas) entitled to fish in another member’s territorial waters*
*However* you were required AS A CONDITION of doing so to have a GPS tracker and to retain that data. This was part of quota compliance enforcement. That data was “attached” to the licence (it’s the licence that is relevant not the physical boat).
Any French fishing boat that was legitimately fishing (ie in compliance with quotas and in compliance with the equipment rules) would have that data and could therefore easily provide proof that they had been fished in Jersey waters in 5 years to 2016.
Any one who is unwilling to supply the data was either (a) not fishing in Jersey waters; (b) not fishing *legitimately* in Jersey waters; or (c) has another really good excuse that no one has disclosed yet
The French government must know this, which is why they are resorting to threats rather than solving behind the scenes.
* TBH I don’t recall whether it it’s territorial or exclusive economic zone waters, but the rules applied to the waters around Jersey whichever they were
NEW THREAD
I recall Flashman being given some ‘help’ to get his dander up in one of the novels. He wonders later if all the larger than life fearless rogues he meets feel like that all the time. He’s probably right. The SAS types would have resisted, but most would have got on with it, and a bit of quiet grumbling down the pub.
However, I do not associate Boris with the word "plan", and there are probably bigger fish to fry for now.
Suspending them might be an option at some point, or introducing a French trawler inspection facility at Whitby or Whitehaven, or at the Port of
GloucesterWorcesterGoole:.