No, what I am saying, and what you are having problems understanding, is that once the UK has control over our fishing grounds, our fishing fleet will see that expansion is worthwhile because the UK can decide who has access to those fishing grounds

As I say fairly often, I like to make a statement, respond, then leave it, so I will not be continuing this subtopic beyond this post. But, I understand that perfectly well, Nigel. The points I raised were that whether you can see opportunities long term or not, such expansion costs money and that has to come from somewhere. Also, unlike many businesses that can grow 1 or 2 percent at a time, the nature of shipping and access to fishing areas make that very much more granular: you have say 3 ships and want to expand to 4: you have to cost-justify a 25% expansion, or not expand. The established traders do not have to build up additional resources and so can bid more for a given level of profit. Now, some of the biggest UK businesses may be able to justify the gamble of investing but then not winning the business. I don't think small ones can.

Then the second point is that while the UK (government) can decide who gets access, there is no reason to believe the UK fishermen will get any sort of preferential treatment: indeed it would not be hard to make the case that the focus should be income to the UK as a whole, not any one specific sector, and therefore it would be wrong to give them such preferential treatment. So any fishermen who voted leave on the grounds it would protect their industry may find it does not work out like that at a personal level.