COULD Downing Street be set to sell out Scottish fisherman in return for a better deal for London’s financial services?

Yesterday, Boris Johnson’s official spokesman insisted Brexit would mean taking back control of the UK’s waters, but didn’t rule out EU fishing vessels being granted access as part of trade negotiations.

The comments came after Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar explicitly linked the two sectors.

In an interview with the BBC, he said there would have to be “trade-offs” between London and Brussels if there’s to be a new trade deal by the end of the year.

He said the UK had a “very strong position on fisheries”, given that “a lot of fish” are taken out of British waters by “boats from other countries”.

However, Varadkar said that this was in contrast to financial services, where the UK was in “a very weak position”.

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He added: “And if financial services and entertainment, audio visual, are cut off from the single market, the European market, that will be a very severe blow to the British economy and the south east, in particular in London.

“So, you know, you may have to make concessions in areas like fishing in order to get concessions from us in areas like financial services.”

Asked about the Irish premier’s comments, Johnson’s spokesman said: “We are going to be taking control of our fishing waters. We have been clear on that.”

However, he went on to say that it would “be for the UK to determine in the best interests of the UK who fishes in our waters.”

The comments from Downing Street came as a leaked memo revealed that Brussels was planning to fight to keep access to fishing grounds off the coast of the UK.

Leaked to the Press and Journal, the European Council document, entitled “Internal preparatory discussions on future relationship: Fisheries”, claimed that the EU’s “priority” in trade talks is to keep “existing reciprocal access and quota shares”.

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The paper claims negotiations on fisheries will take place in the “context of the overall economic partnership”, meaning if an agreement on fisheries is not reached then a wider deal could be threatened.

Elspeth Macdonald, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, said: “It is surely in the EU’s interests to reach a favourable trade deal to allow Scottish seafood that is in strong demand in EU markets to continue to flow from sea to plate.”

SNP MSP Stewart Stevenson asked for “some honesty”.

He said: “Despite the Tories promises, Scotland’s fishing industry could end up with precisely no gains whatsoever from Brexit.”