Cod War! Gavin Williamson readies the gunboats to protect British fish after Brexit

Britain has taken delivery of state-of-the-art gunboats to protect our fishing waters from the EU and others after Brexit, the defence secretary has announced.

Gavin Williamson said the vessels will “stand ready” as he unveiled the first of five £116m ships which will form part of the Royal Navy Fishery Protection Squadron.

The Ministry of Defence said the boats will become the Royal Navy’s “eyes and ears” around the UK, helping to safeguard fishing stocks.

HMS Forth is the first of five from the Batch 2 River-class Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPV) production line, built by BAE systems in Scotland. As well being designed for fishery protection, it will form part of the defence against smuggling and assist with border patrol, counter terrorism and maritime defence duties.

Mr Williamson said: “The Royal Navy has a proud tradition of protecting the UK’s coastline and keeping a close eye on our fishing waters.

"With these state-of-the-art, vastly capable ships we stand ready to protect our fisheries once Britain leaves the EU.”

The ships will emerge at six month intervals with two further vessels - HMS Medway and Trent – to be handed over later this year. The remaining two – HMS Tamar and Spey – are expected to arrive in Portsmouth by 2020.

The gunboats are designed to spend 320 days a year on the water with the capacity for 39 crew at a time. They will be armed with a 30mm automatic cannon, two Miniguns, four machine-guns and are also equipped with two Pacific 24 sea boats.

They also have a flight deck for Merlin size helicopters to land on.

It comes as the Treasury announced the MOD will receive £12.7 million from the Government’s Brexit preparation allocation to support work with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on maintaining the UK’s fisheries.

The two departments will work closely together to to determine the “optimum deployment” of the “extremely flexible vessels”, the MOD said.