Latest news with #fishingRights
The Sun
06-07-2025
- Politics
- The Sun
Until Britain ENDS the benefits paradise for migrants no amount of co-operation with French will ever work
Pull the plug AS Keir Starmer prepares to give Emmanuel Macron the full state visit treatment while French cops fail to stop the small boats, the Prime Minister should consider two options. First, France's abject failure should mean Britain refusing to sign the fishing rights deal that Starmer struck as part of his Brexit reset with the EU. 1 After all, what have the French done to deserve such a giveaway? A total of 703 people crossed the Channel in just seven days to June 29 — while gendarmes only stopped 191. The following week a whopping 2,599 crossed. That's a poor return for £480million of British taxpayers' money. Channel migrants free accommodation and healthcare and access to benefits — and letting them work illegally on the black market without fear of arrest. Until Britain gets tough and ends the benefits paradise for migrants — and is also prepared to say 'non' to the French — no amount of so-called co-operation will ever work. IT'S a number that should drive fear into the Chancellor's heart. More than 69,000 jobs have been lost in the pub and hospitality trade since the disastrous jobs tax Budget. The industry simply cannot cope and so businesses have either shut down or laid off staff. Some left wing Labour MPs still think the answer is yet MORE tax. Yesterday former leader Neil Kinnock also called for a wealth tax — despite it having proved a disaster when imposed in other countries. Would the last landlord in Britain please turn off the lights? French cops handed millions in UK taxpayer-funded gear are still failing to stop boat crossings Solar eclipsed THE lunacy around Net Zero deadlines gets worse by the day. After a scorching summer you'd think solar panels would be soaking up the sun and sending electricity to our homes. But the grid can't cope with the glut so solar farm owners are being paid to switch the panels OFF. Why Ed Miliband continues to pour billions of pounds of our money into this nonsense is anyone's guess. Supermoronic IS it our are trigger warnings getting more ridiculous by the day? Oasis documentary may feature, er, cigarettes and alcohol.
CBC
09-06-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Commercial fishing group to call on courts to define moderate livlihood
Social Sharing An organization that represents commercial fishermen says it's steaming ahead with a lawsuit aiming to define the terms of a moderate livelihood fishery now that a Nova Scotia-based First Nation has dropped its own lawsuit against the federal government. "It is critically important for all participants in the fishery to understand what the moderate livelihood right is and what its scope is and just as important to understand what it isn't," Colin Sproul, president of the United Fisheries Conservation Alliance, said in an interview. "We really need that clarity for everyone." Sproul was responding after his organization learned late Friday that lawyers for Sipekne'katik First Nation filed a notice of discontinuance in a lawsuit the band launched against the Attorney General of Canada in 2021. The Chronicle Herald first reported the development. Sipekne'katik wanted the courts to rule that the federal Fisheries Act infringed on its right to fish for a moderate livelihood. That would include the group's ability to fish for lobster outside the commercial season and catch and hold lobster without a licence. Sensing roadblocks? Sipekne'katik Chief Michelle Glasgow, who had been scheduled to appear in court on Monday as part of discovery for that lawsuit, did not respond to requests for comment. A summer fishery the First Nation started in St. Mary's Bay five years ago has been a flashpoint, with representatives from Sproul's organization and some other commercial groups expressing concern that a full-scale commercial operation has been happening outside of the regulated commercial season and that Fisheries and Oceans Canada has not done enough to prevent it. First Nations fishers have countered that fisheries officers have unlawfully seized traps and interfered with their treaty right to fish. Concerns aside, some First Nations fishers have exercised their food, social and ceremonial rights in the area. Fish caught as part of the FSC fishery, which is not regulated by any kind of season, cannot be sold or traded and is a constitutionally recognized practice. Michel Samson, a lawyer for the United Fisheries Conservation Alliance, said his interpretation of the notice of discontinuance is that officials with Sipekne'katik determined "there was no way that the courts were going to recognize what was being claimed." Moderate livelihood never defined With that lawsuit coming to an end, the alliance is now free to pursue its own. The group had intervener status in the matter between Sipekne'katik and the federal government, which had been previously delayed while the two parties worked toward a resolution outside the court process. "The United Fisheries Conservation Alliance has gone from being in the back of the bus to now behind the driver's wheel in having the courts make a determination on what are the limits around a moderate livelihood fishery for First Nation communities in Nova Scotia," Samson said in an interview. Calls for a definition of what constitutes a moderate livelihood date back to a 1999 Supreme Court of Canada ruling known as the Marshall decision, which said that First Nations have a treaty right to earn a moderate livelihood. And while a subsequent clarification, known as Marshall II, said the government can regulate a resource in certain circumstances, it has been up to Ottawa, in consultation with First Nations, to establish what constitutes a moderate livelihood. That has not happened.
Daily Mail
07-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Starmer's trade deals FIASCO: 'Win-wins' are just sugar-coated concessions
Keir Starmer has sought to portray his hastily stitched together trade deals with the United States, the European Union and India as unalloyed triumphs. The way he tells it, you'd think he is so persuasive at the negotiating table that he could sell ice to Eskimos and sand to Arabs. But the truth is that a Prime Minister in need of an economic success story to sell to an increasingly disillusioned electorate has sugar-coated the outcomes of these talks and misleadingly presented them as 'win-wins' for UK plc. In fact, he has been bamboozled and outmanoeuvred at every turn by representatives of foreign powers who really do know how to play hardball. Take the French president Emmanuel Macron's outrageous piece of brinkmanship over fishing rights. Aware of how desperate the embattled Starmer was to announce a new trade deal with Brussels, he ambushed him at the 11th hour with a demand that EU fishermen be given further rights to our waters for 12 years. No wonder one member of an influential French fisheries committee later gloated: 'We couldn't have hoped for better.' And what did we get in return? A vague promise to allow British travellers to use e-gates at European airports at some unspecified point in the future. Starmer's willingness to sign agreements that have concessions to the other party baked in – but only airy promises about reciprocal benefits – is a feature of all the deals he has signed to date. The American deal, for example, has more holes than a sieve. Under the terms of the 'US-UK Economic Prosperity Deal', we were told that Britain would be freed from a 25 per cent tariff on steel and aluminium, for example. (A tariff, incidentally, that was later doubled to 50 per cent but is currently on hold until July 9.) The dash for a carbon-free economy means that there is only one UK blast furnace producing vital virgin steel currently operating at full capacity. As a result, the White House is concerned about the prospect of Britain sending cheaper imported steel to the US that has been pressed or rolled in this country. So the US negotiators are insisting that only steel that is 'melted and poured' in the UK (in other words, smelted in a furnace) is covered by the trade deal. All very well, but one of Britain's biggest steel exporters is Tata Steel. It shut down its blast furnaces at Port Talbot in South Wales last year, so must currently import raw steel from the Netherlands and India – both subject to American tariffs. This is a knotty problem – and the clock is ticking. Unless an agreement can be reached by July 9 when the new tariff rates kick in, Britain's steel exports will be hit by that punitive 50 per cent rate. So much for the US deal. The EU one is even worse. While Starmer surrendered to Macron's ultimatum over fishing, Brussels remained characteristically obdurate when it came to its €150 billion (£125 billion) defence fund. Despite the growing threat from Russia, the US's coolness towards Nato and Britain's leadership in high-tech warfare – not to mention our control of the Eurofighter Typhoon platform – Starmer extracted only the woolliest of commitments from the EU. The bloc merely said the new deal 'will pave the way' for Britain's defence industry to participate in the EU's fund. There were similarly weasel words when it came to the use of e-gates by British travellers to the Continent. Under the terms of the deal, access would be given as 'soon as possible', yet we could be queuing for years to come. Even the recently agreed trade deal with India has its critics. It included an extension from one to three years to a scheme that offered Indian workers employed here on a temporary basis an exemption from National Insurance Contributions – a totally toxic clause given Chancellor Rachel Reeves' now notorious October Budget, which raised Employer National Insurance Contributions. What is particularly shameful is the dishonest way in which the Government has presented the deals to the British people as if they are a big win for everyone. Tell that to the working men and women and fishing crews whose livelihoods are threatened by the weakness and incompetence of the man at No 10.
Telegraph
20-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
European diplomats used Starmer chatbot to predict PM's next moves
European diplomats used an AI chatbot modelled on Sir Keir Starmer to prepare for eleventh-hour negotiations over the Brexit reset deal, the Telegraph can disclose. Officials linked to both the Spanish and Slovenian governments were among those interacting with a 'digital clone' of the Prime Minister in the final hours of wrangling over the agreement. The AI models were used to test potential responses as the European Union sought to force through concessions on fishing rights and youth mobility, it is understood. Sir Keir eventually signed away 12 years of guaranteed access to Britain's fishing waters and agreed to sign up to a scheme making it easier for Europeans to live, work and study in the UK as the price for his Brexit deal. His critics branded the agreement a 'surrender' and an attempt to reverse Brexit by stealth. Hundreds of questions were posed to a virtual model of Sir Keir designed and operated by a British tech firm which also has digital versions of Parliament's 649 other MPs. Its system generates answers using data harvested from previous public statements made by the Prime Minister and the other politicians. 'AI is fast becoming a vital tool in diplomacy. The ability to accurately predict how a government might act or respond is a huge bonus,' Leon Emirali, the company's founder, said. The diplomats, from Spain's economy ministry and Slovenia's digital ministry, used a 'prediction function', which would indicate they were testing potential responses from Sir Keir as the negotiations reached a climax. There were hundreds of messages shared back and forth between the bot and the diplomats, as if they were role-playing a bilateral meeting with the Prime Minister or querying his position. The model developed by Mr Emirali, once an adviser to former Brexit secretary Steve Barclay, was designed specifically to help diplomats and officials prepare for political showdowns. Talks over Sir Keir's Brexit reset went down to the wire, with the agreement only signed off by EU member states hours before a summit between the Prime Minister and Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa, respective presidents of the Commission and Council. Wrangling went back and forth between the UK and European Commission delegations. But before any deal could be agreed, it would need the approval of EU member states, who were being kept updated in the wings. During the talks, national capitals were able to influence the EU's red lines by tabling new demands. It is understood that diplomats using the AI chatbot were testing how Sir Keir could respond to these fresh requests. However, it cannot be confirmed because the data is encrypted to protect its users. Versions of the chatbot are being produced to help Europeans navigate Donald Trump's US administration, while it is also being considered to predict outcomes of meetings between despot leaders, such as Russia's Vladimir Putin or North Korea's Kim Jong-un. Similar technologies could be used to predict future military actions taken by the likes of Moscow, or its allies in Iran and China. The Telegraph used the same AI model as the European diplomats to ask the Sir Keir chatbot questions on everything from Brexit to winter fuel cuts. When asked how far he could be pushed to give up British fishing rights in EU waters, the Prime Minister's 'digital clone' insisted that it's unlikely he'd give up more than he already has. And after having to concede to the EU in parts of his Brexit deal, Sir Keir's AI twin said he wouldn't yield to any more of their demands nor join the single market again. The chatbot also said that the families of people using the youth mobility scheme would not be allowed to come to the EU under the Brexit reset, insisting there would be no return to freedom of movement. The Telegraph also asked the Prime Minister's virtual clone about his Rwanda migrant plan, trans women and the winter fuel cuts. The chatbot said he wouldn't reopen the Tories' plan to deport migrants to Rwanda – saying that there is a 0 per cent chance it would happen. Starmer had been a staunch critic of the Rwanda migrant plan – but last week he'd begin talks with other countries to host 'return hubs' for failed asylum seekers. And when asked if trans women are women, the Starmer chatbot pointed to the Supreme Court's historic ruling last month stating that the term 'woman' refers to biological sex in the Equality Act.
BBC News
19-05-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Wetin dey inside di new UK-EU deal wey set out post-Brexit relations on key areas
UK and di EU don reach one new deal wey highlight post-Brexit relations on areas wey include fishing rights, trade and defence. Dem go explain beta di full details later. But dia na wetin we know say dey di deal so far. Fishing Farming exports Defence and security Youth experience scheme Passport e-gates Carbon and energy
