1. The fish are alright
Historically and presently, the United Kingdom has identified and presented itself as a maritime nation.[1] Fisheries, historically a significant source of employment, cultural identity, and economic output, are a vital component of the UK’s seafaring character. Amidst the decline of other British coastal industries, fishing, also in a state of ‘managed decline’,[2] is perhaps the UK’s final remaining material link to this maritime heritage.
Our article posits that the interplay of fishing, national politics, and British international affairs over several centuries engendered a fishing iconography rooted in place, power, and identity. Fishers, fishing communities, and the political class gained differing utilities from this iconography. Even as the industry’s size and productivity has declined (to 0.02% of the economy)[3] and knowledge of fishing’s adverse environmental impacts has become widespread, fishing iconography remains germane to major events in contemporary British politics.[4] We use EU membership generally, and Brexit specifically, to highlight how conceptions of national identity influenced by the fisheries-politics-law nexus can ‘bite back’ to shape the activities of a political class instrumental in affording fisheries this power in the first place.[5]
Brexit is an example and an outcome of these interlocking forces. Since the UK joined the European Union in 1973, fishing policy challenged key British constitutional principles, and precipitated UK-European conflicts. This fomented pro-Leave rhetoric and ultimately directed the course of Brexit (2016-20) and the Transition Period (January-December 2020). Yet Brexit may also prove to be a critical juncture in fisheries policy, as it offers the UK an opportunity to break from perversely subsidised and unsustainable path dependencies that defined EU-era UK fishing policies.[6]
We proceed as follows. §2 articulates a historical and material foundation for British fishing iconography, arguing that it arose from the fishing communities’ socio-economic and political activities to become part of British national identity writ large. We characterise this as a romanticised national iconography of fishing as a noble, distinctively British profession. In §3, we consider the implications of this by examining how fishing iconography was effectively deployed by sections of the British political elite to capture national attention during the referendum campaign, before assessing how fishing directed political events during Brexit. Having evaluated the past and present of British fishing, §4 turns to the future. Building on previous work by marine scientists, we highlight pathways to recast extractivist fishing iconography as an iconography of flourishing marine ecosystems conserved in service of public welfare interests.[7]