Here's closing remarks from the SNP on a parliamentary debate, that shows the predominant driving factor was fisheries, and (if you read the rest of the debate) suggests a lot of confusion about what was being discussed and why): https://www.theyworkforyou.com/sp/?id=2000-04-26.9.0#g58.1
Thank you for taking the time to do that and I know we are drifting massively off-topic. The blogs posts fail the PROMPT test for me but the Zahraa, 2001 paper is much more interesting and makes a decent case that this isn't a settled issue and it probably should be sooner rather than later.