Why Did the Brexiteers Throw Fish in the Thames?

The press release was stupid yet clear. The fishing boat would cross Tower Bridge at 08h00. It would arrive at Embankment at 08h30. There would be a few prefatory remarks from Jacob Rees-Mogg. Then it would proceed upriver, to the Palace Of Westminster, where dead fish would be thrown into the Thames. By Nigel Farage. And apparently it was all something to do with Brexit.

What could possibly go right? I grabbed my My First Reporter’s Notebook and hurried towards the oncoming car crash.

Evidently, I wasn’t the only one. A lively crowd of rubberneckers had turned up to snigger behind their hands. Above our heads, the Sky News chopper hovered, an Apocalypse Now soundtrack for Jacob Rees-Mogg, Brexit’s very own Captain Kurtz. We were treated to some light Common Fisheries Policy chit-chat. "One thing’s for sure," said Rees-Mogg. "I won’t be flinging any fish myself."

The press pack were the usual fust of gunts. Always some bloke from ITV going "scuse me, mate" as he muscles past you like a tubby Cockney wraith, as though he’s the only one who needs to get a shot. Next time, I think I’d rather be thrown into the Thames by Nigel Farage.

Finally, the boat chugged into view.

What could be on it?

Yes, it was more press! Oh, happy day.

Embarrassment, as it turned out the boat's owner couldn’t spell Holidays. Also, it wasn’t really holidays if fishing was his job, now, was it? JRM was initially supposed to be on the Holladays, but then something "farcical" happened – they were denied permission to dock.

"They have to be licensed," TfL's resident jobsworth said, as though he’d been waiting all morning to say so. "And this vessel’s not licensed."

Well, erm… nothing else for it, then. JRM and his fellow MPs, Craig McKinlay and Anne-Marie Trevelyan, did not board the boat. There were no further farcical scenes. No one had to be rescued by special scuba-equipped Bobbies from the Met's Aqua Camp Squad. They all just went back to their offices.

And with that, Jacob strode back into 1955, from whence he had come, his hot-headed libertarian streak ensuring he crossed the road against the lights. Rab Butler had some briefing notes for him at the Foreign Office on the developing situation with General Nasser in Egypt. Toodle-oo, Jacob!

Yet the boat sailed on. It also contained actual fishermen, after all, and they still had a serious message. Britain is practically surrounded by water. Jump off Brighton Pier, tell me what you land in. But when we joined the Common Market in 1974, Ted Heath’s government allowed Spanish and Portuguese fleets to take part of our quotas, as part of the price of British entry. Suddenly, British fish were meant to be for everyone. Even nations with pathetic little coastlines like The Netherlands got in on the act. When Norway was asked to join the EEC a few years later, they rejected it partly because of the threat of losing their fishing waters. It can matter.

This was The Great Betrayal, so far as our tight-knit fishing towns were concerned. What happens when an industry is destroyed at the stroke of a pen? Grimsby.

Here, now, fishing is a minnow industry, of some 24,000 jobs. Only a third of those are actually on boats, the rest are processing plants. And many of the jobs are in Scotland – a sort of semi-mystical pasty netherworld just past Barrow-In-Furness.

For scale: there are three times as many job vacancies now open in the NHS.

Back in the Referendum campaign, our fishing towns were sold the hope of a Great Revival. But it’s a Great Delay now. Thanks to David Davis's recent agreement, we now have to wait 18 months longer to tell the Spaniards to go take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.

Do fisherpersons really matter in the greater game of Brexit? Nope. But is it unfair to them? Absolutely.

Jacob had washed his hands of the fish. But Nigel Farage, like media-whore Rentokil, will do the tasks no other politician will. Here he was, one year, nine months and seven days since The Battle Of Geldof Pond, climbing aboard another boat outside the Palace of Westminster.

"Go a few miles down the river, and you will see, every day, thornback rays* being chucked back, to rot on the sea bed," said Farage, shaking his head, a handful of whole raw fish in each gouty paw. "The whole thing is a disaster." And with that, the poor fish who had died for him to have a decent prop when he said these words were lobbed overboard. They had gone to their maker so that their unborn children might live (via Nigel’s political am-dram). The Christlike aquanauts ploshed onto the sacred Thames with barely a sound.

Another box followed. And another. Tonight, they would all sleep with the fishes. Touching.

Stood up on Westminster bridge, various tourists came past and asked me what was going on.

I told them: "Nigel Farage is throwing fish into the Thames to show he is against extending by 18 months an agreement we've had for 44 years for an industry that comprises less than a half of a percent of UK GDP."

They thanked me, and then backed away, slowly, without turning round.

@gavhaynes

*Incidentally, the Thornback Ray is possibly the sweetest little possum in the whole global aquarium. I’m no ichthyologist, but it can only be hurting our seas to murder these cuties.