BREXIT poses a “huge danger” for Scotland’s fragile fish stocks as the nation’s skippers prepare to ramp up catches, a specialist environmental charity has warned.

Open Seas, which campaigns for sustainable fishing, sounded a note of caution as scientists and economists broke cover to question the trawler lobby’s long-standing view that leaving the European Union would solve the industry’s problems.

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The charity is one of very few bodies to challenge the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation assertion that Brexit can and will bring a huge rise in the amount of fish landed in like Peterhead.

But Bertie Armstrong, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation described the claims as a “total misunderstanding of what is at stake”.

Conservative and SNP politicians during this month’s General Election fought fiercely for the fishing vote in Banff and Buchan and other North-east constituencies, each trying to attack the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) – a the set of rules governing fishing fleets and fish stocks – harder than the other.

The Herald:

The Tories came out top with their Scottish leader Ruth Davidson championing a 200-mile exclusive limit for British fishers around the UK coast, potentially propelling Britain in to dispute with its neighbours.

Environmentalists are sceptical that either Scotland or Britain will be able to police its waters or prevent overfishing of stocks shared by several nations in a single habitat extending across the North Sea and North Atlantic.

The Scottish Fishermen’s Federation believes its members will boom after they take some of the 60 per cent of fish in UK waters currently netted by foreign skippers under the CFP.

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Open Seas campaign manager Phil Taylor said: “There is a predictable rush by big fishing interests to ‘take control’, but let’s remember our fish are a public resource, no matter how the Brexit chips fall.

“There is an opportunity to start fishing more sustainably, but there is a huge danger we treat fisheries post-Brexit as a bottomless bonanza and loosen the very regulations designed to manage our recovering fisheries.

“We really cannot return to the way things were done in the 80s and early 90s, when stocks were collapsing. Whoever fishes our seas needs to do so in a way that protects and recovers fish stocks and most importantly the overall health of the seas. Industry self-regulation doesn’t work.”

The Herald:

Britain was thrown in to conflict with Iceland when that country imposed a 200-mile limit off its coast, barring Scottish skippers from its waters. Any attempt to do the same in Scotland would also pitch the country in to a diplomatic dispute with neighbours, almost certainly, say scientists, forcing the UK in to bilateral agreements to manage shared stocks, only without the CFP.

Writing in today’s Herald, Griffin Carpenter of the New Economic Foundation, stressed there was no magic bullet for fishing after Brexit.

He said: “The first truism in fisheries is that there are only so many fish in the sea, and only so many that can be harvested sustainably. The UK taking a greater share of fish quotas by definition means that the rest of the EU must take less – something easier said than done.”

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Clive Fox of the Scottish Association for Marine Science, also stressed that catches would have to be limited and shared under international agreements.

He said: “Post-Brexit, it is important to remember that effective means of matching harvest levels to what the stocks can support will still be required. In addition, measures designed to protect marine habitats which are vital for a healthy marine ecosystem will still be needed.

“After Brexit the UK will be obliged under international law to reach agreements with neighbours on managing shared stocks.

“So, if UK fisheries do end up being managed nationally, most of the challenges involved in fisheries management will not magically disappear but there might be a bit more flexibility in how we deal with them.”

Bertie Armstrong of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation has previously re-enforced lobby messages about the CFP.

Last night, he said: “The sustainability of fish stocks will be at the centre of any new fish management process post-Brexit, just as it is in Norway.

“Not one extra fin of fish will be caught nor will there be any catching above sensible scientific limits.

“The fishermen will not be in charge. Our government will be in charge of how fish within our economic zone is caught. This is an opportunity for more sustainable fishing not less.”

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Scottish fishing has been in decline for decades with the industry increasingly focused in a small number of highly capitalised trawlers. More than a quarter of crews are foreign, many Filipino, with native Scots turning away from the industry where wages are often paid as a share of catches that are never guaranteed.

However, a survey by the University of Aberdeen found 92 per cent of Scottish fishers backed Brexit, though few of them thinking leaving the EU would disrupt trade in fish.

Some 80 per cent of UK catches are exported and some 70 per cent of fish eaten in the UK is imported.