Amid reports of fish-based attacks upon government ministers in reaction to the impact on UK fishermen of the Tories’ disastrous Brexit trade deal, allegations have emerged that it wasn’t actually Prime Minister Johnson driving this side of the agreement. “According to my sources, Larry the Downing Street cat seized control of the fisheries policy,” claims Eric Nurgent-Poyles, Chief Political Correspondent of the East Acton Gardeners’ Gazette. “I say ‘seized’, but in truth, Boris, as usual, was doing sweet FA – he was completely out of his depth so called for an expert on fish.” The problem was that Larry proved obsessed with fish, holding up other parts of the agreement until he received assurances that ‘his’ fish wouldn’t be going to European cats. “He was determined that British felines shouldn’t be disadvantaged,” explains the journalist. “He was insistent that that the EU slap huge tariffs on British-caught fish to prevent their export to the continent! He got so excited over it that the furry fiend even bit Michel Barnier over the issue!” The end result has been tons of British fish spoiling as it awaited customs clearance and correct paperwork. “Larry doesn’t care,” declares Nurgent-Poyles. “He and his cat pals just love that pungent fishy aroma of masses of the stuff going off that now permeates many of our ports – the furry little bastards are all flocking to the coast to get a goof whiff of it!”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Nurgent-Poyles’ claims have been dismissed by other political commentators. “It’s bloody ridiculous – even a government as incompetent as this one wouldn’t leave a cat in charge of a policy negotiation,” says Bernard Crickle, Deputy Political Editor of the Sunday Bystander. “Besides, everybody knows that cats won’t touch rotten fish – they want it fresh.” Crickle contends that the real architect of the post-Brexit fisheries policy is, in fact, Jacob Rees-Mogg. “If anyone is fish obsessed, it is him,” reveals the newspaper columnist. “Indeed, his fish-fetishism is one of the worst kept secrets in Westminster!” According to unsubstantiated rumours, the Tory right-winger and Leader of the House, was the subject of an attempted blackmail attempt last year, involving pictures of him naked in a bath full of glistening mackerel. “The attempt failed as, technically speaking, he wasn’t actually committing any offence, which rather blunted the blackmailers’ threats,” explains Crickle. “Nonetheless, he was keen that the picture not be made public, fearing the embarrassment it might cause if photos of a prominent Catholic politician bathing with fish on a day other than a Friday reached the press.” Rees-Mogg’s fish fetishism is also alleged to have included him stripping naked and wearing the bottom half of a blue marlin like a pair of trousers, in order to pretend to be a Merman. “Of course, all of these claims – including that one about him being caught in bed in a seedy seaside hotel with a load of shellfish – are completely unsubstantiated and have always been denied by his office,” says Crickle. “But it is notable that, alone among Tory ministers, he seems completely unmoved by these recent fish-related attacks by protesters.”
Indeed, Mr Rees-Mogg actually seemed to enjoy a recent attack, when a Scottish trawler man, protesting at the post-Brexit fisheries deal, shoved a large live halibut down the MP’s trousers outside the House of Commons. “He just gave that smug knowing smile of his,” observes Crickle. “Before walking away from the protest, the fish gradually wiggling its way down the front of his trousers.” Other attacks have included Michael Gove being pelted with pilchards outside his home and an attempt to slap Boris Johnson in the face with a trout. The most serious incident saw Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab briefly hospitalised after being felled with a flying grouper in a drive-by attack while he was out walking near his house. Number Ten has condemned the these fish-based assaults, warning that it was only a matter of time before someone was seriously injured, or even killed. “Look, it might make for an amusing headline, but there is nothing funny about someone flinging a large fish at you from a moving car,” a spokeperson told the press, adding that if the rumoured planned attack on the Home Secretary, using a horde of trained crabs, was carried out, it would be considered an act of terrorism and dealt with accordingly.
The possibility of prosecutions under animal cruelty legislation are apparently also being considered. “As Mr Rees-Mogg has pointed out, these fish are much happier now that they are British fish, swimming in British waters,” the Downing Street spokesperson opined. “So clearly, they are being coerced into assisting with these heinous attacks.” Nurgent-Poyles, however, has now claimed that his sources have indicated that most fish are, in fact, not happy to be British. “I have it on good authority from someone at the Ministry of Defence that significant numbers of fish are currently refusing to be caught by British trawlers,” he has claimed in his latest article. “In fact, they are migrating in large numbers to EU waters.” The government, apparently, has not ruled out military action to stem the flow of fish to the EU. “As far as they are concerned, this is clearly some kind of EU plot,” he writes. “They’ve found some way to lure our fish into their waters.”
Military options are said to include sending the Royal Navy to depth charge any shoals of fish swimming toward Europe. “The beauty of such a strategy would be that the dead fish would rise to the surface, providing easy pickings for British fishermen,” says the local journalist. “The possible drawback is that there is always the danger of attacking the wrong fish – French fish, just passing through British waters, for instance – thereby risking some kind of international incident.” Indeed, the whole scheme raises the spectre of the ‘Cod War’ of the nineteen seventies, when fish in disputed waters off of Iceland refused to be caught by UK trawlers, leading to a stand off with the Royal Navy. “Let’s not forget how that turned out,” cautions Nurgent-Poyles. “Several British frigates were seriously damaged when fish formed into shoals and rammed them. Consequently, the UK was forced to back down. It was all very humiliating.”
