Brexit: Foreign Secretary Liz Truss sets 48-hour deadline to resolve row – as Jersey attacks France ‘bully’ | politics news

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Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has set a 48-hour deadline to resolve the fishing dispute with France before the UK can proceed with legal action.

Speaking to Sky News at the COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow, Ms Truss criticized the French for acting “unfairly” and accused them of operating outside the terms of the Brexit deal.

French authorities last week seized a British scallop fishing vessel in the port of Le Havre as fresh tensions erupted over post-Brexit fishing rights.

French President Emmanuel Macron has set a deadline on Tuesday to grant more licenses to French ships to fish in UK waters before trade retaliation begins.

France warned that it might ban British ships from French ports, while the row also revived a French threat to raise the price of electricity supplied to Jersey, in the Channel Islands, via submarine cables.

The Jersey government, which is responsible for managing licenses for French vessels to fish in the island’s waters, accused France on Monday of seeking to “bully” the “unprecedented” threat to the island’s energy supply.

The British Dependency Department called for an end to the “ridiculousness” of “political rhetoric” and “dealing with technical issues”.

On the first day of the COP26 summit, which Mr Macron is attending, Ms Truss said France had made “completely unreasonable threats, including to the Channel Islands and our fishing industry”.

“They need to withdraw these threats,” she told Sky News. “Otherwise we will use the mechanisms of our trade agreement with the European Union to take action.”

“What this means is that we will use the dispute resolution mechanism, which could lead to direct action in trade.

“The French have acted unfairly, it is not within the terms of a business deal. And if someone has acted unfairly in a business deal, you have the right to take action against them and ask for some remedial action.”

This is what we will do if the French do not back down.

Photo: France has detained the British fishing vessel Cornelis Geert Jean in the port of Le Havre

Ms Truss said the issue “needs to be resolved within the next 48 hours” before the UK can proceed with legal action.

Ian Gorst, Jersey’s minister of foreign relations, said he was “extremely disappointed” to hear the French threat of retaliatory action.

“It’s not about political rhetoric, it’s not about threats, it’s not about anecdote – let’s move on aware of all that absurdity and tackle the technical issue of providing evidence so that licenses can be issued,” he told Sky News.

Mr Gorst also criticized the French threat to his island’s energy supply, adding: “I am happy to say that the original rhetoric of cutting our electricity off has, of course, been taken away.

“Now the French are talking about reducing the supply and imposing tariffs. Let’s be clear, this is a private contract.

“If the French took this measure, it would be absolutely unprecedented for a G7 country to interfere in a special contract for what can only be seen as purely political ends.

“They are a big nation, we are a small island. Let’s deal with what was agreed in the trade deal instead of seeking bullying and threatening.”

The fishing dispute follows French dissatisfaction with the AUKUS security agreement announced between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States in September.

Truss indicated that the French presidential elections next April may be the motivation behind Macron’s tough stance.

“You might say there’s a French election coming up,” Ms Truss said. “You could say there are many other issues of concern.”

“But what I would say to the French is that we are fellow freedom-loving democracies – we should not fight with each other, we should focus our efforts on working together.

“This is not a zero-sum game, we can benefit from more trade with each other, by working together on issues like security and defense.

“We need to get past these unreasonable threats and work together instead.”

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The prime minister is ‘worried’ that the treaty may have been violated over fishing

As part of the row over the fishing, France has claimed that its retaliatory measures could also include imposing physical checks on trucks traveling to and from the UK.

This has led to fears of long queues on both sides of the canal, which could disrupt shipments before Christmas.

Truss did not deny that the UK viewed other European ports as a trade route.

She said: “Overall, it is important for the UK to diversify our trade and not be dependent on a single source of imports, or indeed, a single destination for our exports.

“So I’m totally in favor of diversifying our trade and making sure we have options, because that puts us in a stronger position.”

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COP26 is set to become the second major international summit hosted by the UK this year that has been marred by a row with France over Brexit.

It comes after “sausage wars” with the EU over post-Brexit arrangements in Northern Ireland dominated this summer’s G7 summit in Cornwall.

But Ms Truss cautioned that the current hunting dispute “cannot be allowed to overshadow what is the most important conference in a generation”.

“Everyone knows how important it is to get the climate change agreement we need,” she added.

“How important it is to protect the world’s most vulnerable nations from climate change, and how important it is to all of us and our future.”

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