Experts at Northeastern University in London look at why the deal was signed and why Brexit debates so often circle back to fishing.
LONDON — A new post-Brexit deal signed by the United Kingdom and the European Union promises to make it easier to trade, go on holiday and for young people to live abroad.
So why was it greeted as an “appalling sell-out” by Boris Johnson, the former British prime minister who delivered Brexit?
Arguments over Brexit tend to elicit such emotions, says Josephine Harmon, assistant professor in political science at Northeastern University, because the 2016 referendum result, which saw the U.K. vote 52% to 48% to leave the EU, created a “particular culture of British patriotism in which Euroscepticism was a core part of this view of the British nation.”
The London-based academic argues that the referendum helped establish a view among some politicians and voters that Britain could not be truly politically free without being outside the rules set by Brussels.
“There is this idea that the referendum created a mandate for Britain’s sovereignty as being outside Europe,” says Harmon, “and there is an opposition to any cooperation that is seen as reducing British sovereignty.”
Johnson’s gripe was along the lines that Harmon describes, with the former leader of the Conservative Party taking to X (formerly Twitter) to bemoan that Britain, under the new terms agreed by London and Brussels, will see the U.K. have to “accept EU law on a host of measures” without having any say due to no longer being a member of the bloc.
The deal announced by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will bring the two sides closer on multiple fronts — economically, socially, politically and in terms of security.
The accord removes barriers to transporting food and drink between the U.K. and the EU. Brexit rules introduced in 2021 led to British-made sausages and burgers being banned from being sold in the EU, something the new pact reverses.
A defense and security partnership was agreed to as part of the negotiations, while EU tariffs on British steel have been scrapped, and there is the potential of holding further talks about relaxing work and study restrictions for those ages 18 to 30.
When it comes to travel, British passport holders will once again be able to use eGates in Europe to avoid long border lines — a Brexit effect that U.K. travelers commonly voiced complaints about on social media — and the accord will make it simpler for tourists to take their pets with them when they head to the continent.
Harmon says the deal worked for both sides due to a need to boost economies and confront the changing geopolitical landscape.
Starmer’s Labour government pledged to boost Britain’s stuttering economy when it took power in July and smoothing trade friction with the country’s largest trading partner is seen as the surest way of delivering on that. Ministers say the accord, which has largely been welcomed by British businesses, could bring down the price of food.
For Brussels, Harmon says the acrimonious Brexit divorce is being left in the past due to Britain emerging as a key partner in handling the war in Ukraine and also acting as an access route to the Trump White House thanks to the U.K.’s “special relationship” with the U.S. appearing to have remained intact.
But yet, despite a wide-ranging agreement, the debate still manages to come down to arguments about fishing rights. To secure the changes on food trade and travel rules, the U.K. has agreed to allow EU-registered fishing boats access by quota to British waters for another 12 years.
In what was reportedly an 11th-hour concession, the move has seriously angered Brexiteers. Nigel Farage, leader of the Eurosceptic Reform UK political party, said it threatened to be the “end of the fishing industry” in Britain. So why does the fishing sector, which contributed around 0.03% of the total U.K. economic output in 2021, rile anti-EU campaigners so much?
Edmund Neill, associate professor in modern history on Northeastern’s London campus, says Britain’s protectiveness over its fishing waters harks back to both the era of the British Empire and to the U.K.’s early encounters with the fishing and agricultural policies of the EU.
The Common Fisheries Policy was created by the European Economic Community (EEC) — the founding name of the EU — to ensure fair competition to the bloc’s fish stocks among members. But with British waters being some of the most well-stocked in Europe for profitable fish and seafood, domestic fishermen complained that foreign competitors were plundering their profits.
“There’s a slightly fictional notion of what Britain is, based on it being an island nation, that conjures up a belief that not having control of our waters is particularly bad,” says Neill.
“Also, in the 1970s, one of the things that did seem most iniquitous about the EEC — and not without cause — was things like the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy, so there are those sorts of historic reasons for that feeling among Eurosceptics.”
But Neill points out that U.K. fishing fleets in the past have sold their fishing licences to EU boats in order to cash in. Brexit, he adds, has also brought with it new difficulties for trawlermen when it comes to selling their catch in the form of increased border checks on fresh produce.
“Some fishermen have worked out that since Brexit, they’re now filling in huge amounts of paperwork and actually exporting much less to Europe,” continues Neill.
“So yes, although there are quite a lot of fishermen currently really fed up at the fact that there’s going to be another 12 years of entry [into British waters for EU boats], there are some fishermen who point out that this has been a little bit of an exercise of cutting off your nose to spite your face.”
Fish exporters are not the only people to experience what Harmon calls “Regrexit” — a term used to describe elements of the electorate who regret voting to leave in 2016.
Harmon says polling indicates that there is a growing pro-EU mandate among the British public. A poll published by YouGov on May 20 found that one in six “Leave” voters say they made the wrong decision, while 62% of Britons regard Brexit as a failure.
“There is a view,” says Harmon, “that no mandate is eternal and that new mandates can be generated. Starmer himself invoked his landslide general election as a mandate for change.”