Published on 12, July, 2020
Give Northern Ireland back to the Irish. It's only ever been trouble.
Discuss...
England and Wales will survive Brexit. Northern Ireland might not with the way things are going...
In the run up to the referendum it was difficult to determine how Northern Ireland would vote. There were times when I wondered whether Northern Ireland should not be included in the referendum, or a second referendum held in Northern Ireland if its electorate was larger than the winning margin from the mainland.
When the results were coming through there was a clear Protestant / Unionist and Catholic / Republican split to the vote. The only significant exception was North Down but then that's demographically similar to Surrey!
The problem is further complicated by both the Conservatives and UKIP uncompromisingly hell bent on maintaining the Union at almost any costs.
A possible solution would be to split the UK into two countries - England with Wales as its dominion and Scotland with Northern Ireland as its dominion. The first leaves the EU but the second remains in the EU.
How would you see the UK surviving Brexit, especially a no-deal Brexit?
As I previously stated, Brexit might end up breaking the UK apart.
I have thought about if Scotland became independent then Northern Ireland should be thrown in as a freebie. After all, most Unionists in Northern Ireland are Scottish in origin.
By catch doesn't exist. There is only catch.
Regardless of your intent, what is in your net is catch.
Typically, sea bass feed very close to shore during the summer (in the surf!), only moving into deeper water in winter.
However, if a species reaches a critical situation where the only safe catch is ZERO, then yes, for the good of the wider fishery, it has to be a total fishing ban in that area. It's the only thing that'll work. Anything else is a tragedy of the commons.
This is far from clear cut but there is some trend that those on both the left and the right tended to vote Leave and those in the political centre tended to vote Remain in England and Wales but the media (deliberately?) chose to ignore the political left and their 'Lexit' as they like to shoehorn politics into left vs right on many issues, and Labour with Remain represented the left when in reality Jeremy Corbyn was historically anti-EU and many old Labour types in the party voted Leave.
The socioeconomic group A was the most pro-EU and support for the EU decreased downwards to the point where socioeconomic group D was the most anti-EU although there is some anecdotal evidence that the trend somewhat reversed for socioeconomic group E.
Not sure I understand what you're saying. If trawlers have sea bass as unintentional by-catch, what happens to it? If it's allowed to be landed and sold, what incentive does that create to avoid this happening? So there will need to be some discards at least?
And I think you are saying there would be no danger from a general quota, if that general quota were set to the sustainable catch of the most endangered species. Well, you've effectively given the figure for sea bass as 0. Therefore all fishing would be banned, which would be unpopular with the industry and public.
I've stumbled on this defence from the EU from 2015:
https://ec.europa.eu/fisheries/cfp/fishing_rules/sea-bass_en
I'm not arguing that any commercial landing of sea bass should be allowed. It seems since 2015, the UK and France have been arguing against a complete ban:
http://www.saveourseabass.org/en/over-fishing/
Cassandro said:Putting a quota on the total catch as some suggested would be worse
Untrue. Let's suppose that scientists conclude that at current stocks, the North Sea can sustainably provide 75,000 tonnes of cod. Let's also pretend for the sake of argument that it's the most endangered species (it's not).
With a total catch quota for an obviously indiscriminate net, that means North Sea boats can only afford to catch a total of 75,000 tonnes of fish - just in case they all turn out to be cod.
Total catch will work - but it requires "design for worst case" thinking, and a draconian enforcement policy because too many people want to flout the rules for money.
Boats of any nation which are damaging the environment by breaching their total catch quota deserve to be used as target practice by the Navy.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/only-fishing-ban-can-save-sea-bass-htx7x0cz2
Scientists say stop all fishing for this species.
EU fudges issue, allowing commercials to continue, but banning people using a rod and line...
nexus9 said:Here is an article that suggests the issue is a little more nuanced....
It is. Putting a quota on the total catch as some suggested would be worse, because then there would be overfishing just of the most valuable species (then when they're nearly gone, the next, and so on). I've already mentioned this in a post below.
It's not a simple problem to solve - it's effectively a potential tragedy of the commons, and some form of international co-operation at least is needed, whether or not that is associated with a trading bloc. Is there any outstanding valid criticism of the 2013 Common Fisheries Policy along these lines, which was agreed in order to fix the damage?
DongFeng5 said:Therefore the EU does not protect the environment.
Even if the premise of criminal waste of natural resources and ecosystem damage is true, that conclusion doesn't follow logically. There is more to the environment than fish. Overfishing can also be considered an environmental issue.
Here are some of the messages I was seeing from environmental organisations before the referendum:
Having said that, in theory there's no reason why the UK outside the EU couldn't in theory choose to have the same or higher environmental standards. One problem, however, is that to encourage other countries to have higher standards and avoid a race to the bottom, pressure may need to be exerted through trading agreements. For example, a country with a high carbon price would have to be able to charge a duty imports produced using coal, if only as a form of moral disapprobation... To accomplish this may require explicitly making the WTO subservient to environmental conventions.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/11/brexit-uk-fishermen-fishing-industry-quotas-uk-government
Here is an article that suggests the issue is a little more nuanced....
nexus9 said:relatively small example of bureaucratic stupidity
No. A criminal waste of natural resources and ecosystem damage.
Therefore the EU does not protect the environment.
The wastage went on and on for years. Just because they have been shamed into fixing things now doesn't mean the EU is suddenly fit. They're unfit precisely because the waste remained unaddressed for so long.