RN has been inspecting fishing boats since the 1700s. It is not new. The ships are armed but I’m yet to find any instance in recent years where they’ve fired them at fishermen whilst out on patrol.

They routinely patrol British waters - RN has to provide a set number of hours of fisheries protection a year. It’s not a small task. They routinely board foreign AND British trawlers. They routinely inspect logs, catch and check where fishermen are fishing.

Like the source says “highly likely a couple will be at sea on New Years Day”. But this isn’t unusual. It also has to be a significant breach of fishing regs for the RN to “arrest” a fishing boat and any escalation/fine/verbal rebrief is at the decision of the @The_MMO

It’ll also take time for both sides to learn the new rules, the new catches and yes, no doubt there will be some scuffles but that happened before now anyway.

The ‘doubling’ of the OPV fleet was also not some secret deal done in a back alley as suggested by another paper. It’s been sung and danced about. Such inflammatory pieces out there today.