THE Government and Labour today joined forces to oppose Euro plans to slash Britain's fishing fleet by almost a third.

Ministers and opposition front benchers warned they will block such moves until Brussels cracked down on continental pirates who use British flags of convenience to poach dwindling stocks.

Fisheries minister Tony Baldry said: "There will be continuing anger if Spanish crew, Spanish owned and Spanish skippered boats continue to catch fish against the UK quotas."

Ministers reckon that over 150 Spanish and Dutch vessels are bogusly flying UK flags and take 30pc of the total British catch.

Ministers will argue that the UK fleet has been artificially inflated by foreign owned vessels pretending to the British.

And Labour spokesman Gavin Strang said the Euro scheme was "totally unacceptable".

Whitehall sources confirmed today that ministers would not back down over the issue.

They also said that Britain would continue to paralyse day to day Euro business until Brussels lifted the world wide ban on British beef.

But Shadow Foreign Secretary Robin Cook repeated his warning that "jingoistic" language used in the beef war could spark soccer violence.

With the European championships barely a week away, he challenged Tory ministers to dump such rhetoric.

Mr Cook said: "There is a heavy responsibility on politicians to avoid language that may inflame tensions on the terraces."

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