GET Brexit done.
How often now do I hear that call to arms, and no one wants this more than the fishing industry.
The presence of a super-trawler in British waters last week highlights what is so wrong with the EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP).
The Margiris, a leviathan factory ship, registered in Lithuania and Dutch-owned, is 142 metres long and processes 250 tonnes of fish a day at sea, equivalent to a dozen smaller boats.
It was thought to be targeting mackerel and pilchard 14 miles off Brighton, where Marine Traffic tracked its path for more than a week.
Greenpeace blames ships like the Margiris for decimating fish stocks, destroying marine ecosystems and ruining the livelihoods of inshore fishermen who fish sustainably.
And British environmentalists say the gigantic trawling nets endanger local beaked dolphin, bluefin tuna and sea bass.
While the Margiris is completely banned on environmental grounds from Australian and West African waters, her rapacious activities are perfectly legal under the EU’s CFP.
The Marine Management Organisation, the government agency responsible for enforcing fishing regulations in UK waters, boarded the boat last Wednesday but found “no infringements”.
Bound by unfair EU rules, we are completely unable to act.
Yet Sussex fishermen fear that already, the supertrawler has irredeemably damaged fish stocks.
So, we need to leave the EU, re-impose the 200 nautical mile limit, leaving us to decide who fishes, where, and on what basis.
A spokesman for Parlevliet & Van der Plas, owners of the Margiris, told the Daily Telegraph: “We fish until Brexit has happened - God knows when that is.”
For the sake of our fishermen, our coastal communities and our country, let it be soon.