An MEP launched a campaign to save Britain's fish stocks yesterday and has asked people to call him McMillan-Skate rather than McMillan-Scott, in an attempt to highlight the problem.

Tory Edward McMillan-Skate, MEP for Yorkshire and Humberside, has produced a five-language guide listing 40 species - coupled with a "get tough or get out" call to Prime Minister Tony Blair to save British fish stocks from the EU.

The fish card was launched at the Tory conference in Bournemouth yesterday, when the party debated its EU policy.

"My card says, 'Cherish fish or it will disappear' in the main EU languages." said Mr McMillan-Skate, whose Euro-constituency coastline stretches from Whitby to Grimsby.

He said: "Skate is extinct in the North Sea - once the world's best fishing grounds - and cod is down by 50 per cent. It is time to get tough or get out."

The Common Fisheries Policy is undergoing a major overhaul in an attempt to reverse a drastic decline in fish stocks which 20 years of conservation measures have failed to halt.

Fishermen have been told year after year to tighten their belts, on the promise of revived fortunes.

But now the Brussels Commission is seeking more swingeing cuts in fish catches and the laying up of boats in an attempt to get to grips with the crisis.

The WorldWide Fund for Nature says "all major fish stocks are now threatened" as 40 out of 60 species in British waters are being fished unsustainably.

Mr McMillan-Skate's fish card lists 40 species in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish and is being delivered to EU fisheries ministers, European Commissioners and Euro MPs.