Breaking fish throwing news from Fishing for Leave:

The fishing boat Holladays R8 will pass through Tower Bridge at 0800 WEDNESDAY 21 MARCH and sail upriver before tying up at Embankment pier 0830. Where there will then be a press conference with the chairman of the ERG, Jacob Rees-Mogg, MP, and other Conservative MPs with fishing constituencies. 

The Holladays will then sail with Craig McKinley, MP, and Ross Thompson, MP, and set off again and pass parliament, where she will symbolically dump fish in protest at the British fishing industry being trapped and subjected to another 21 months of the inept Common Fisheries Policy which could see much of the UK fleet put out of business.

So the Mogg will not fling any fish himself but will give a press conference, then two other MPs will board the boat and the ceremony will be conducted. Above is the vessel from which the fish will be flung. Can’t wait.

Michael Gove’s comment that EU boats will be able fish in UK waters after Brexit has gone down badly with leavers. Reports quoted Gove saying during a visit to Denmark:

“Danish fishermen will still be able to catch large amounts of fish in British waters, even if the British leave the EU… Britain has no fish cutters and production facilities enough to catch all the fish in British waters.” 

If you think that sounds like a fishy excuse, you’re not alone. The cry of “Tory betrayal” is ringing out, UKIP’s fisheries spokesman Mike Hookem says:

“It does not matter a damn that the British fishing industry may not currently have the capacity to process all the fish caught in British waters. This is nothing more than an excuse!”

Gove’s u-turn is particularly galling since he was suggesting the opposite as recently as two weeks ago. He said on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show:

“When we leave the EU we’ll become an independent coastal state and that means we can then extend control over our waters to 200 miles.”

Guido is no fishing expert, why can’t we just leave the uncaught fish in the sea?

Asked if he would back Douglas Carswell or Arron Banks in Clacton, Nigel Farage replied: “it doesn’t take much working out“. Farage was twisting the fish knife at a hurriedly called Fishing For Leave press conference this morning, attacking “posh boy” Carswell:

“He should have gone in 2015, he’s been sabotaging… We’ve got a new leader of UKIP who needs to be given a chance… If the MP is doing you harm, you’d be better off without him… Quite why Douglas joined the party when he disagrees with the policies I don’t know. “

Farage denied he was the party’s “backseat” leader and joked the infighting in UKIP is “almost as bad as in the Labour Party.” Around 30 hacks were lured hook, line and sinker on the promise of a Farage appearance, only to hear Owen Paterson lengthily outline the future of British fishing after Brexit. An important issue to be sure, not a big draw for the media crowd in SW1…

Meanwhile Michael Heaver, Farage’s former spokesman, says of Carswell’s “infiltration” of the party: “Forget U.K.I.P, it was more K.G.B“. Carswell has been summoned by Paul Nuttall to meet UKIP’s chairman this afternoon…

UPDATE: Fightin’ talk from Arron Banks: “We will have a high street shop in Clacton, professional agent appointed soon and I will be rolling my sleeves up.”

UPDATE II: Team Carswell say he is “supremely relaxed”.

UPDATE III: To which Banks’ sidekick Andy Wigmore responds: “Bollox [sic] old wonky jaw is toast”.