The Labour maverick, who has been the Labour member for Grimsby since 1977, believes the CFP has been disastrous for the fishing industry and his own port constituency in particular.

He is likely to be among a group of Labour rebels who will join the Liberal democrats, the Scottish National Party and many Tories in supporting a referendum on whether Britain accepts the new treaty, despite the fact that Labour MPs have been told to oppose it.

He has made no secret of the fact that he would like to see Britain get out of the EU altogether, so it could secure control of its own fishing grounds and start to rebuild its fish catching industry.

He said last week in a tongue in cheek speech, which he titled 'The Constitutional Rights of Fish': "Now the House (of Commons) has decided that the European Commission was right to include the marine resources of the sea, and fish, in the constitution that durst not speak its name, it is surely right to commemorate the elevation of these creatures of the sea in a more elegant language than the prosaic Eurospeak, in which most of the treaty is written."

"Combining the American Declaration of Independence and the constitution gives us an inspiring declaration appropriate to the feelings and dignity of those titans, (great and small) of the ocean and does justice to the CFP bureaucrats who bidst the mighty ocean deep in its own (EU) Appointed limits keep.

"We the fish, crustaceans, seaweed, dolphins, sharks, whales and the watery mammals of the European Union common waters, in order to form a more perfect fishing policy, and secure the benefits of being caught landed and sold to ourselves and our posterity, hold these truths to be self evident: that all fish, crustaceans, seaweed, dolphins, sharks and all watery mammals are created European, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, up to the point of being caught at which we assert our right to be caught by any European vessel authorised by quota, but otherwise consent to being caught and discarded dead so that to secure a Common Fisheries Policy be instituted asking men deriving its just powers from the authority of the Commission to create an ever more perfect union."

www.fishupdate.com is published by Special Publications. Special Publications also publish FISHupdate magazine, Fish Farmer, the Fish Industry Yearbook, the Scottish Seafood Processors Federation Diary, the Fish Farmer Handbook and a range of wallplanners.

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