Nigel Farage accuses Bob Geldof of 'mocking fishing industry' with Thames EU flotilla stunt

Hannah Al-Othman15 June 2016

Nigel Farage today accused Sir Bob Geldof of "mocking" the UK fishing industry during a bizarre Brexit clash on the Thames.

The Ukip leader spent the morning on board a flotilla of around 35 boats, which had been organised by Scottish skippers as part of the Fishing for Leave campaign.

The vessels sailed from Kent towards parliament ahead of the final Prime Ministers Questions before the country takes to the polls on Thursday.

Sir Bob Geldof boarded a boat decked out in Remain branding and sailed up the Thames to oppose the Brexit boat.

But Mr Farage said the singer's stunt was "mocking our declining fishing industry".

He wrote: "Multimillionaire Bob Geldof on the Thames mocking our declining fishing industry and families who have had their lives destroyed by the EU."

Speaking to reporters Mr Farage branded Geldof's protest "just disgusting".

He said: "The governing principle of the common fisheries policy is that of 'equal access to a common resource'

"Fish stock that should be within the UK's internationally-recognised territorial waters is now shared with our European partners. This has led to a 60 per cent drop in oversized landings and the loss of tens of thousands of jobs in our industry.

"These are communities that have been devastated. These are communities that no-one has listened to for years."

He added that many of the fishermen had taken several days out of their working week and travelled south to join the protest.

"To see multi-millionaires frankly mocking them is a pretty shameful sight," he added.

However, Sir Bob hit back, branding the Ukip leader "no fisherman's friend."

He pointed out that while Mr Farage was on the European Parliament fisheries committee he attended just one out of 43 meetings.

He said: "Look at the facts: Farage is no fisherman's friend. Farage had the chance to help fisherman in the EU, but only attended one out of 43 fisheries committee meetings.

"The UK gets the second biggest quota out of member states and has the biggest profit of any EU member state. Leaving Europe would be disastrous for our country, our economy, our public services and our fishing industry."

Fishing for Leave flotilla

1/12

Sir Bob was supported by Greenpeace UK executive director John Sauven, who said: "When Nigel Farage had a chance to stand up for UK fishermen in Brussels, he bunked off. His no-show voting record proves he's no fisherman's friend but a cynical opportunist exploiting the harsh predicament of many fishermen for political gain.

"What's threatening the livelihoods of thousands of sustainable, family-run businesses is the grossly unfair division of fish quota overseen by successive UK governments. The root of the problem lies in London, not Brussels.

"Quitting the EU will only condemn the industry to years of wrangling over new fisheries agreements, with no guarantee of a better deal for fishers or stronger protections for our seas."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in