Work to be done to protect fishing rights

But the islands are vulnerable as the negotiations unfold.

Our foreign affairs minister Jonathan Le Tocq has said that the Bailiwick will not accept anything except our own controls over our own territorial seas.

A fine stance, but the reality is that the UK and France have much bigger levers to pull to manipulate the islands to their whims should they want and the legal position is not certain.

Our fishing industry is reliant on landing their catches in France, and history shows that is a trading route easily blocked, whether rightly or wrongly.

While the UK agreed to extend the Bailiwick’s territorial waters to 12nm, that was not the end of the road for gaining full control.

For example, the co-ordinates have not been agreed – something the UK still has to negotiate with France on our behalf.

The States report agreed last year said that a Bailiwick law, which Jersey already has in place, also needs to be agreed to ‘put the extent of the Bailiwick territorial seas beyond doubt’.

For that to happen, it needs to be passed through the UK’s Privy Council, a tool used in the past to strong-arm the island.

Guernsey also wants ownership of the seabed and foreshore so that it could profit in the future from things such as licensing renewable energy – while that is a Crown issue it would be foolish to think it cannot also be used as a lever by the UK Government.

This all comes at a time when the island’s man in Westminster, Lord Keen, has resigned in objection to the Government’s internal markets bill.

That kind of disruption as the Brexit deadline nears is unhelpful.

It is not beyond MPs either to go down routes that would undermine the Bailiwick’s constitutional position.

Anything that weakens island control needs to be resisted.