A flotilla of fishing vessels as part of the Fishing for Leave campaign yesterday sailed up the Thames to tie up at Westminster, arriving just as Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) were taking place in the Houses of Parliament.
The approximately thirty fishing vessels, ranging from inshore boats to beam trawlers, large pelagic and deep sea vessels, met in the Thames Estuary early in the morning as the flotilla took on passengers and sailed up the Thames, where a standoff took place between the Leave Campaign and a boat from the Remain campaign, manned by Bob Geldof also carrying Boris Johnson’s sister Rachel Johnson campaigning for a Remain vote in next week’s referendum on continued UK membership of the European Union.
Bob Geldof and Nigel Farage traded insults over loudspeakers as Londoners and the assembled media watched. Bob Geldof branded anti-EU MEP Nigel Farage ‘a fraud’ and ‘no fishermen’s friend’ while Farage countered that Geldof’s position was ‘disgraceful.’
A police launch was deployed at one point to keep the two apart.
The flotilla has generated extensive publicity for the fishing industry’s position across national media and was also mentioned in the House of Commons during PMQs. Social media went berserk during the event and for a few hours afterwards, with a colourful variety of jokes and comments on the fishing industry’s position, ranging from critical to highly sympathetic.
According to a statement from the Fishing For Leave campaign that backed the flotilla sailing to the Houses of Parliament, ‘June 15th 2016 will go down in fishing industry history as the day that decent working class people stood up and tried to make a difference.’
‘Despite this wonderful display of unity in an industry often divided by the frustration of unworkable regulations being played down by the BBC as being of ‘little importance’, today marked not just a simple demonstration but a new dawn for fishermen everywhere,’ stated Fishing for Leave.
