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Comment by cseleborg | Hacker News Reader

As I understand it, fishing is a very important part of the UK & IE identity. I guess similarly to firearms in the US or labor protection in France (I'm French). It doesn't matter how small a part of the economy it represents, it's still a highly emotional topic. This explains why politicians go to great lengths to protect the fishing industry there.

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Pelagic fishing in Britain literally only employs about 10,000 people. Prawns, crabs, lobsters and fish farming employ more but they have all been thrown under the bus by the brexit deal that the halfwits in charge have negotiated. The industry is just waking up to the fact it has been conned.

This is what confuses me: before the brexit campaign, I don't think anyone here (brit checking in) cared about fishing. Naval battles maybe, but not fishermen. It was never a part of national identity for me at least...

There was that whole COD WAR thing which was pretty intense at the time, and fishing quotas have been a thing in The Sun for a while, but I agree it doesn't feel like a huge part of the general identity.

I feel like people trying to build a national identity around hating Europe are really keen on fishing. Though only as far as it's useful for that end, no one actually cares about fishermen etc. That's what's so confusing to me about all this (brexit etc): it's all a very thin "papering over the cracks". As soon as someone has to make a hard choice, they renege. How anyone still supports it baffles me.

/Rant

Mon ami, please don’t equate us (IE) with the British.

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