Fisherman 'sold down the river' by Brexit
A Cornish fisherman who voted for Brexit said the fleet had been "sold down the river" because foreign boats were still fishing near the coast.
Cornish MP Steve Double raised the issue in parliament this week saying the under-10m (33ft) fleet was "sadly in decline" and had been losing more than 100 vessels each year.
The former director of the New Under Ten Fishermen’s Association (NUTFA), which disbanded last month, said foreign-owned boats just "scoop up all the fish" in the area six to 12 miles from the coast.
The government said it was "listening" to fishermen.
Jerry Percy, from NUTFA, said about 80% of the UK fleet was small boats but they only had access to about 3% of the fishing quota.
He said he had announced NUTFA's closure because he could not see a future for the industry because of the foreign fleet's ability to catch huge quantities of fish.
"There's no effective catch limits for these boats so you've got this huge bunch of very powerful vessels fishing in uncontrolled ways in our waters to the detriment of our guys who can just stand there when they can't go to sea watching all the foreign vessels scoop up all the fish," he said.
Martin Gilbert, who fishes mainly for shellfish out of Newquay harbour and voted for Brexit but said the current deal had "sold us down the river".
"The French, the Belgians and the Spanish have still got the majority of the quota," he said.
"We have to go past the French to fish in our own waters and it's not right."
St Austell and Newquay MP, Mr Double said in parliament this week: "The hope and expectation was that as a result of leaving the EU and gaining back control of our waters we would have the opportunity to grow."
Speaking on BBC Radio Cornwall, he added: "We've got better control, we haven't got all that we wanted.
"I think it's unrealistic to expect just in one go you're going to undo 40 years of integration."
Responding in parliament, minister for the Department for Food, Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra) Mark Spencer said: "We have heard from the inshore fleet about what they say is an imbalance between what they see as their fair share ... we will continue to listen to those representations and find a way through."
Mr Gilbert's son Dan, who also fishes out of Newquay, has amassed 20,000 followers on Tik Tok by sharing videos of his life at sea.
He said: "The big boats , they just get away with is and we're getting penalised, I've got 600 pots, they've got 4,000, what does that tell you?"
Under the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement, the UK and EU have rights of access for fishing in specific parts of each other's waters between six and 12 nautical miles from the coast, under certain conditions.
Mr Double said: "As we approach the five-year anniversary [of Brexit] and the chance to renegotiate we need to take more control."
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