The first clash between the new Scottish Parliament and the old one in London is over allegations of piracy. The Scots want to know why 6,000 square miles of sea, which they thought were theirs, have suddenly become English.
The potential for a Cod War will resonate in an Ireland used to conflict with the UK over the fishing and oil prospects around Rockall. But this time, the accusations concern a massive "grab" of sea, fish and oil prospects in the North Sea. There are already three oil and gas fields in the disputed area, with exploration continuing.
An obscure committee of the House of Commons agreed last month to redraw the maritime boundary, as it was required to do by the Scotland Act which set up the Edinburgh parliament. Cartographic advice suggested that the traditional boundary stretching directly east of the land border at Berwick-upon-Tweed should shift north by up to 60 miles.
Only last week did it emerge that while the 12 miles of water closest to land remains Scottish, waters behind there outwards to Danish waters, roughly 110 miles from Scotland, are mostly in English jurisdiction. The Scottish Parliament will have no say in the dismantling of oil rigs, and petroleum revenues from the area would go to England.
Unsurprisingly, the Scottish National Party knows a populist cause when one is handed to it on a plate, and is accusing the UK parliament of piracy. The SNP is demanding that this extraordinary and anti-Scottish decision be reversed, says Mr Richard Lochhead, one of the new breed Members of the Scottish Parliament.
The Liberal Democrats, newly established as partners with the Labour Party in the Scottish government, are also voicing fishermen's annoyance. The consultation on this has been absolutely woeful, says a new MSP, Mr Euan Robson, who represents the fishermen of Eyemouth, on the coast near Berwick-upon-Tweed.
But the UK Fisheries Minister, Lord Sewell, claims that no England-Scotland maritime border existed before, and that all the lines south of the new boundary are closer to England than to Scotland, in accordance with international maritime law.