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A newlyn fisherman has set off on a three-week voyage to London to help
save British fish.
 Mick
Mahon, a well-known local campaigner for the industry, is currently aboard
his 29-ft trawler J-Anne to tell the British public that the only way
to save British fish is for the UK to leave Europe. Once in London Mick,
who left his home port at the weekend, plans a protest at Traitor's Gate.
During his 23-day trip, Mick will be meeting the public at 17 ports he
will visit along the south and south-east coast.
He said: "As a fisherman I have watched the UK fishing industry
be selectively destroyed, year after year ever since we joined Europe.
"I began fishing from my home port of Grimsby in the early 1960s,
working off Iceland, Greenland and in the White Sea when the UK cod fleet
was being kicked out of north Atlantic waters. Now I'm being economically
kicked out of my own waters.
"I will forever fight for my interests under the Fishermen's Association
Ltd which says that the only way ahead is for the UK to be out of the
CFP and I personally, as a director of the Fishermen's Association Ltd,
say that the only way to achieve that is for Britain to leave Europe."
Mick added: "The UK must look towards the Faeroes who now sit upon
a valuable fishing industry, one quickly gained after it kicked out all
European ideas of quota management. Faeroes' fishermen now take a major
part in Faeroes' fisheries management. Our management by Defra (under
the CFP) is a continual disaster; dumping fish at sea does nothing for
conservation and means boats stay out longer and fish harder to make up
the economic losses of dumped fish.
"Politicians know that and try to ignore it, using words like 'discards'
wishing that one day their ideas will work. Those ideas will never work.
We, the British people are sitting upon very valuable fish stocks, ones
that Europe badly wants and ones that it will eventually get if we remain
within Europe."
article copyright © THE CORNISHMAN
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