The origin of the simple but filling stew known as lob scouse is clear in that it was associated with sailors, but whether it was brought from Northern Europe to the North West of England (and in fact elsewhere in the country) or vice versa is far from clear. It has been around for 300 years or more, so there's little chance the question will ever be answered definitively. There are dishes called Lapskaus from Norway, Labskaus from North Germany, and Labskojs from Sweden. Some of these feature herring, some pork and pork sausage, but all use carrot, onion and potato, the essence of Liverpudlian scouse (indeed there is a poor man's variant called blind scouse that uses no meat, but is still recognizably scouse).