Theatre, Europe and the politics of fish.

I like to go to theatre, but I do not go there to admire, worship or judge, nor to be entertained. I do not care much about how the actors act or are dressed, how the scene is arranged or what the producer has done or not done with the script. And I am not particularly interested in somebody’ standard of perfection, “state of the art”, or whether it is “better than” or even “best theatre in the world”.

What matters for me is whether the whole performance has an impact on me: does it make me feel, think and reflect, is it meaningful, am I challenged or inspired? In short, I want to be touched. This is my aim to go to the theatre, and whether it is West-End, Off-West-End or Fringe has not been any guarantee for anything so far.

Some time ago, I went to see The Schuman Plan at Hampstead Theatre. It was about the history of Britain’s relationship to the EU, sought to show “both sides” of the debate, but ended up as a basically anti-EU-position.

I was curious because I have done some studies on attitudes to European integration myself and always been against Norwegian membership. However, when I hear the British speak about their “great empire”, their critique of political intervention in the economy and that their intention of membership is to exercise influence in Europe, I take a more mild position and feel like defending the EU.

The play raised many issues, but the central binding story was about the impact on EU-membership on a group of British fishermen and their communities. It is the way this story was told that I will reflect on here.

The first scene was the home of a fishing family in the thirties, where the father and grandfather had been fishermen, and the boy of nine wanting to follow in the family tradition. Then we were presented to the policy reconciliation after WWII together with the anti-EC-positions of the British government in the early 50’s.

Then comes 1972 when the final membership-negotiations were going on between the EC and Britain and Norway. The EC had insisted on Common Fishing Policy (CFP), which implied that all Norwegian and British waters – 80% of all fishing stock in Europe - should be common fishing ground under EC-legislation. The outcome of the negotiations was that British fishing was traded away for the benefit of other national interests.  But fishing means more for Norway than for Britain.

In this scene, we see the Norwegian prime minister talking in telephone to the British prime minister. He was quite desperate and disappointed of the outcome of the membership negotiations, explaining that he could not hide, lie or get domestic support for such a policy. He urged the British prime minister to withdraw, and the main arguments against this policy were presented. The aim of this scene was to show that the British government were fully aware of the consequences of EC-membership on the British fishing; in other words, that the fishermen were betrayed by their own government. For those that do not know: Britain became member in 1972 together with Denmark and Ireland, while the Norwegians had a referendum where the outcome was no.

Then we return to the scene of the fishing community in the 1984, where people talked about what happened to the fisheries and the threat of the foreign trawlers. The fishing resources in the North Sea were about to be eradicated; on the bottom of the sea was a layer of dead, rotten fish that the “Spanish armada” and others had got in their nets, but had thrown out again because they had caught the wrong fish stock according to their quotas. They argued that Iceland and Norway did not have problem with over-fishing because they had full control over their own fishing resources.

The following scene was in 1992. The fishermen were forced to destroy the small fishing boats that they had worked so hard to get. We see a confrontation with the one single governmental serviceman whose job it is to control that this is done. But he had no excuse for this policy or for what he was doing, and he was called a traitor.

We see the fisherman coming on the scene with cans of gasoline to finally burn his boat. He says something like (I may not remember the exact words): “I cannot do anything else, there is nothing else for me, and if I cannot have an income and support my wife, I am not a man, I have nothing to live for”. His wife reminded him about the community and their plans for political mobilisation, but he says: ”I am too old and weak” He commits suicide by refusing to leave his burning boat. This was the ultimate consequence of the Common Fishing Policy and governmental betrayal.

The play ends with a retired EU-enthusiast that expresses doubt and disappointment: the great visions of the Schuman plan has become nothing but disputes about budgets and other pettiness.

During the break, I asked the woman sitting next to me whether this was a typically British way of thinking, and she said it was. She said to me that if Britain hadn’t been in the EU, they could lead their own fishing policy. So I ask: is it so?

I do not criticise the play as such. It was for sure good enough to make an impression on me. And it was probably a good representation of British EU-debate. And I will also emphasise my empathy for fishing communities and for small scale coastal fishermen, as for small scale farmers, wherever they live. But understanding and respect does not mean to fully accept their version of how things hang together.

What I will criticize is the way that the fisherman’s suicide is connected to EU-membership. I do so, because here we have a good case for a (very short) comparative analysis between EU’s CFP, the fishing policy of Britain and the Norway. The way it is presented merges fishing policy together, without making an analytical distinction between three different aspects of the policy. The first is the policy of management and allocation of fishing resources; the other is that of restructuring of the fishing industry, and the third is that of the government’s social and economic policy towards communities and people that loose their traditional income and way of life.

My argument is that only the first of these may reasonably be blamed of the CFP, or rather on the group of EC-states. This is what is called “the tragedy of the commons” which shortly refer to that everybody is interested to get as much as possible of the common pool and that the others restrain themselves. Yes, it is reasonable to believe that it is easier to manage the fish stock if you don’t have to compromise with everybody else, and that the British government would have had a stronger position in the negotiations and that British fishermen would have access to more resources.

But fish are swimming and do not care about borders. Neither does pollution. It is also a matter of experience, scientific production of knowledge of fishing stocks and willingness to learn from past mistakes. There is no other way to maintain the fishing stock in the North Atlantic than by committed co-operation between state authorities and common regulations. The CFP is a committed co-operation, and I suppose they have learned a lot during the years. And committed co-operation goes on between Iceland, Norway, Canada, Greenland (Denmark), Russia and the EU. They also have conflicting interests, but their common interests is to maintain the fish stock.

International co-operation and regulations is essential, even though not necessary the within the EU.  If Britain had controlled their own fishing resources, they would still have to co-operate with others. But the threat of the “tragedy of the common” is still there; since they all want to increase their share, at least not get less.

The second aspect is about the destruction of small fishing boats. Some may call it “restructuring” of the fishing industry. Others may call it capitalism. My point is that I strongly doubt that the fisher communities and their family based, coastal type of fishing that were represented in this play would be maintained if they British government had full control over their own fishing policy. (Wasn’t the early 80’s the time of the Thatcher government’s aggressive policy towards the mining communities?)

Also in Norway, there were conflicts of interests between the small boat of coastal fishing and the more efficient trawlers coming far away from other parts of the country. Fishermen all over the country had to destroy their boats and find another way of life. This was extremely hard for many of them - for sure there were suicides - and their communities had to find other kinds of income. This is not a problem caused by the continuing push for higher productivity of the capitalist economy, being EC-member or not. Isn’t it so that the British governments always has been the main promoters of capitalism?

This leaves us to the third aspect of fishing policy. In the play, we met one single governmental serviceman, the controller. I don’t know, so I ask: does this reflect the British governments’ policy towards these communities, or was it just a rhetorical point of the play? Were the communities and people left alone in their poverty and despair, or did they get support to change and adapt? No matter, this is the responsibility of national government and not the EU, but in this play, the fisherman’s suicide is associated with the EC-membership.

My concluding remarks are that the play was successful in the sense that it made me provocated. In general, I think that the EU is a good idea. I am still sceptical towards Norwegian membership, but I am equally sceptical towards British arguments against it. The way to portray the consequences for the fishing policy is dubious, and I do not have particular sympathy for calls for “Rule Britannia” and nostalgia of British greatness. Isn’t it so the main British anti-EC critique is that Europe is not capitalist enough ?