Freedom of the Seas

Since concern for the state of the environment is a matter for experts and other undesirables, the jabbering homunculus that is Michael Gove has concerned itself with more important matters: notably the need for the Recrudescent Imperium of Westminster, Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands to accept its manifest destiny of ruling the waves and protecting British fish from incursions by vulgar cod-Vikings. Having abolished the Good Friday Agreement with a wave of the magic bigot bush, Her Majesty's Government has evidently found it a simple and invigorating exercise to tear up the London convention on fisheries. Like so many of the inconveniences imposed by the EU on the oppressed mainland, the convention was signed before Britain entered the Common Market; but it takes more than mere facts to keep the former Minister for Educational Rah-Rah from hoisting the White Ensign to his limp little mizzen. Naturally, the three Royal Navy vessels charged with protecting the fisheries were ordered to do more with less under the coalition, so there has been no dedicated guard for the past four years. It remains as yet unclear whether any foreign efforts at buccaneering entrepreneurship are meant to be deterred by the presence of a submarine deterrent whose nuclear missiles may or may not fly where they are aimed; or merely by the risk of incurring that jabbering displeasure which was once the dread and envy of Britain's uppity teachers.