As an island nation, the UK has a long and proud fishing history, a cultural identity that caused waves in the 2016 campaign to leave the EU.
For a few days in May 2025 that passion resurfaced, when the Labour Government announced a new deal with the European Union (EU) that aimed to reduce red tape for trade, bring closer collaboration on security and defence, increase energy links and allow young people greater opportunity for travel, study and work.
Much of the media response focused upon fishing, following a 12-year extension of the agreement made in the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020. The new details include a Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) agreement that the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) says “will slash red tape for seafood exporters” and “make it easier to sell British fish to our largest trading partner (the EU)”.
The terms of that original agreement with the EU were due for renegotiation in 2026, so this earlier settlement in May brought a mixed reaction. Some welcomed the SPS agreement, the future stability and the Government promise of £360m investment.
Others felt anger and betrayal, suggesting that fishing concessions were used as a late compromise to ensure the whole deal got signed. After the initial spike of media coverage of the deal dipped, the general interest swiftly ebbed back into the communities, businesses and individuals affected.
But amid the trade tangles, warming seas and arguably unadventurous domestic demand, how will the UK fishing industry fare in 2025 and beyond? Let’s go beneath the surface and find out.
UK fishing and the EU
Ever since the UK joined the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973, murmurs of discontent have echoed through the fishing industry. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, signed in December 1982, brought a sense of order to disputes over maritime activities, including fishing.
However, the following year saw the full implementation of the Common Fishing Policy across EU member states. This restricted the ability of UK fishers to control fish quotas, while granting access for EU boats to fish in British waters. The issue was further compounded by subsequent accession of new member states.
There were complications – the selling off of quotas, for example – but fishers grew increasingly frustrated with centralised policy that was deemed insufficient to adapt to an ever-changing stock and dynamic.
To some, the 2016 EU Referendum offered the fishing industry a chance to regain a sense of identity and the freedom to set its own quotas and legislation. In June 2016, a survey by the University of Aberdeen indicated that more than 92% of people involved in the industry planned to vote to leave the EU.
Brexit offered hope and the result suggested that hope was assured. Boris Johnson, leading figure of the Leave Campaign, and later the Prime Minister who oversaw the withdrawal from the EU, promised: “For the first time since 1973, we will be an independent coastal state with full control of our waters.”
The reality was very different. Though reduced by 25%, EU boats still had access to UK waters and fish, while exports to the EU became subject to third-country checks that caused immediate logistical difficulties, particularly for fishers and transporters of live produce.
In early 2021, the BBC reported on the West Dorset company, Samways Fish Merchants, which exported around 90% of its goods into the EU and was facing additional paperwork amounting to 71 pages per lorry load, with delays of up to six or seven hours for border checks. Samways ceased trading in 2024.
In response to such difficulties, the Government unveiled a £23m support fund to “navigate the challenges of the next few months”, said the then chief secretary to the Treasury, Steve Barclay.
But the anger endured, and whispers grew of a ‘Brexit betrayal’. “Brexit was an opportunity missed,” Elspeth Macdonald, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation (SFF), reflects, “but at least we now had a seat at the table. We could make our own rules about our own waters.”
The future of fishing
The SFF represents around 25% of the Scottish fishing fleet, although a far greater proportion of catch and trade, and Macdonald says there are no fishers banging on her door demanding a return to the Common Fisheries Policy.
Instead, she sees regulatory autonomy as a positive step forward, as is the ability to negotiate directly with the EU and neighbouring fisheries such as Norway, the Faroe Islands and Iceland. Yet she felt that fishing was used as a bargaining chip in negotiations and the recent deal has seen sacrifices made for aspects that are mutually beneficial.
“Fairer redistribution of fishing opportunities has not been achieved,” says Macdonald, “12 years’ access for EU boats with no transfer of fishing opportunities back to the UK is a really bad deal.”
Instead, the promises made prior to the referendum – Boris Johnson’s suggestion that fishers should get “ready for that El Dorado” – failed to deliver and those voices championing the cause seemed suddenly quiet. Ever since, without the exposure from high-profile figures, interest all but vanished. “Fishing always ends up being the price that is paid,” Macdonald reflects.
The fishers represented by the SFF may benefit from having a stronger voice and greater autonomy, but Brexit has left some in the industry in a more difficult position. Based in Brixham, Ian Perkes has worked as a fish merchant for almost 50 years and the last five have been the most difficult.
“It is easier now for us to send fish to Tokyo than send it to France,” he says. The champions of Brexit had lauded increased global trade opportunities as a great benefit, but Ian feels he is forced to trade with the US, Japan and the Middle East because trade with neighbours in Europe has become unaffordable and impractical.
“We spend 600 euros per day on health certification, customs charges and additional transport costs. In 2024, health certification alone cost us over £40k.”
Ian is hopeful that the new SPS terms outlined in May might alleviate some of these issues, but until the detail is ironed out and put into effect, he is unsure as to the extent. At the time of writing, nothing has been rubber-stamped and fishing has again vanished from the front pages.
Cultural value of fishing
According to The Office of National Statistics (ONS), the fishing sector contributes around 0.03% to the UK economic output (2021). While exports increased to £1,730m in 2023, according to Seafish (a public body supporting the UK seafood sector), the figure is still below the pre-Brexit exports of £2,004m in 2019.
What these figures don’t take into account, though, is the cultural and social value of fishing. The UK coastline is a working museum of our fishing heritage. Small harbour towns and villages, communities built around the catching of fish and seafood, with knowledge and skills passed down through generations.
The reason fishing proved emotive to the Brexit-voting public is due to its iconic identity. Millions of us visit those seaside settlements every year and find fascination in the boats, quayside bustle and array of species caught.
There comes respect, too, for a way of life that is hard-earned and dangerous, the fishers forced to spend long periods away from home, knowing one slip could prove fatal.
Domestically, we do not appear to be very good at eating what is available. It may seem absurd, but that export figure of £1,730m is almost doubled by the value of imports. In 2023, we imported £3.446m of fish, due in part to cost, but also dietary choice.
We are a nation fond of the familiar, preferring whitefish such as cod or haddock to the oiliness of mackerel or herring, or prawns farmed in Asia to langoustines or shrimp caught in our own waters.
A further paradox might be drawn from a greater confidence to eat unusual seafood while abroad. As Elspeth Macdonald suggests, “We eat paella on holiday in Spain that might be 70% Scottish seafood.”
Changing a gastronomic culture will not be easy but may present the fishing industry with greater adaptability. This year has seen a bloom of octopus in the sea around south-west England, causing concern for fishers of crab, lobster and shellfish, but also presenting a glut that might be exploited.
The octopuses had been raiding shellfish pots, entering through the side hatches that allow undersize shellfish to escape. Some skippers have targeted the octopus, landing record quantities in the process.
The Cornish trawler Enterprise landed £142,000 worth of octopus in a single catch in early June, although the vast majority were then sold abroad into France, Spain and Germany. Were the molluscs to find a demand in the UK, then fishers and merchants could make the most of this current abundance.
The main reason for the population boom is believed to be climate change, and the warming seas are bringing other species into UK waters. Pia Bateman, chief officer of the Southern Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority (IFCA), highlighted the need to manage the inshore population of black sea bream.
Until recently, black sea bream was considered an emerging population (newly appearing in UK waters). However, they are changing their habits and are now viewed as more established, remaining inshore where they influence the ecological make-up.
“We are developing a shared principles model of management with the fishers, which will be data-led by the industry,” Bateman explains, “Diversification and adaption is so important for the inshore fleet, and it is the fishers themselves who have first sight of ecosystem changes.”
Working together
Although the fishing sector may have felt disillusioned following Brexit, Bateman feels that the Fisheries Act 2020 has encouraged greater collaboration within the industry. It has enabled cooperative development of fisheries’ management plans and facilitated a more adaptive response to changing circumstances.
This collaborative approach can be seen, within Southern IFCA, in the adaptive management of the emerging scallop fishery in the Solent and the development of aquaculture in Poole Harbour. The harbour’s rich birdlife, including fish-eating ospreys and white-tailed eagles, illustrates the health of the environment.
Climate change will continue to bring fresh challenges to our fishing industry, with the increase of species such as bluefin tuna and black bream, while familiar species fade. The cod grounds in the southern part of the North Sea are diminishing, though they remain plentiful further north.
From people within the fishing industry, the overwhelming sense is that our seas are productive and well-managed, although, as Macdonald reasons, we must adapt to what is plentiful.
Macdonald mentioned having recently eaten the tusk or cusk (Brosme brosme), a whitefish common in northern waters that made excellent eating but is a species barely targeted.
Perhaps as consumers, we should become more adventurous. Don’t wait to go abroad before eating black bream, cuttlefish or octopus, certainly not when they may have been exported from the UK in the first place.
And perhaps we should take the opportunity to engage with the fishers themselves, take an interest when we visit seaside harbours. That way, we might gain a sense of what is beneath the surface, rather than a fisher’s tale spun for a headline or two.
