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Brexit trade talks are currently stalling over the issue of fisheries. Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants to fulfil a Leave campaign promise that the UK will take back control of its waters post-Brexit. Previously, EU vessels had free access to British fishing grounds, leaving many fishermen in the UK aggrieved. However, the EU’s chief negotiator – Michel Barnier – has warned Mr Johnson and co cannot secure access to European markets without allowing EU vessels into UK waters.

But Michael Gove may have given the EU the upper hand in Brexit trade talks, as he has already told Denmark that the country’s fishermen can fish in British grounds.

He claimed in 2017 that boats from EU countries will still be able to operate in UK waters after Brexit, as the UK does not have enough capacity to catch and process all its fish alone.

In July of that year, Mr Gove had said Britain was “taking back control” of its fisheries by departing from the EU Common Fisheries Policy, which lets member states fish between 12 and 200 nautical miles off the UK’s coastline.

He also announced the UK’s withdrawal from the London fisheries convention, signed before the UK joined the EU, which let vessels from the UK, France, Belgium, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands fish within between six and 12 nautical miles of each other’s coasts.

But the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said in 2017 that the plan had always been to allow other nations some access to UK territorial waters after Brexit, and that the extent of this could now be decided by the UK.

Mr Gove, Environment Secretary at the time, told Danish counterparts that the UK “does not have the capacity to catch and process all the fish in British waters” and thus boats from EU nations would be allowed continued access post-Brexit.

The Lib Dems’ Brexit spokesman at the time, Tom Brake, said Mr Gove’s comments showed promises by the Leave campaign about fishing were being broken.

He said: “Michael Gove chose to put stopping EU fishing in British waters front and centre of his campaign to leave the EU, yet is now telling Danish fishermen the opposite.”

The SNP said the Government should clarify what was to happen. Stewart Stevenson, the party’s MP for Banff and Buchan Coast, said the move indicated Westminster was not “standing up for rural Scotland’s interests” on the issue.

He said: “They might well be trying to keep voters and fishermen sweet at home with all sorts of promises, yet Michael Gove is jet setting around Europe reassuring EU members that there will be nothing of the sort.”

Last month, Mr Gove argued that the UK can still reduce the access given to other countries.

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He said: “We can have full control of our exclusive economic zone, which means we can control who fishes in our waters and on what terms.

“At the moment it is the case other countries have significant access to our waters; we want to make sure we are an independent coastal state like Norway, Iceland and the Faroe Islands.

“We can allow others in, on our terms.

“That would mean, as Scottish Government research has shown, more jobs and more money, particularly but not exclusively in the north-east of Scotland.

“It would mean we could manage stocks in a more environmentally friendly way.”

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