Our Brexit negotiators must not betray the fishing community

SIR – The EU is stipulating that, as part of any free-trade agreement, its members should be allowed to carry on fishing in our waters after Brexit, and vice versa (report, March 8).

But this arrangement has always worked to Britain’s disadvantage. Our waters have been plundered by EU fishing boats ever since Edward Heath signed away our exclusive rights in order to join the Common Market. It’s the reason there was an overwhelming vote to leave among constituencies with a fishing community.

Theresa May, and prominent Brexiteers such as Michael Gove, must resist using our fishing industry as a bargaining chip. It would be a bitter betrayal of all those who voted Leave in order to take back control of our seas and thus regenerate an industry that has been virtually wiped out by the Common Fisheries Policy. Angela Lawrence

Woodbridge, Suffolk

SIR – Should the Government choose to bargain away control over our waters, then it is entirely possible that the Scottish Conservatives will lose seats won at the last election.

This would result in a Labour administration, giving Scottish nationalists an opportunity to hold a second independence referendum.

Ministers involved in the Brexit negotiations should be thinking about the whole of the United Kingdom. Stuart Robertson

Aboyne, Aberdeenshire

SIR – Philip Hammond, a Remainer, has shown once again that Theresa May is wrong to be keeping him in his post as Chancellor.

By stating that he is open to allowing EU trawlers into British waters, he has provided yet another nail for the coffin of the Conservative Party at the next general election.

As a Brexiteer and a lifelong Tory voter, I despair. Ron Kirby

Dorchester SIR – It is not against the spirit of Brexit to allow foreigners to fish in our waters – provided that the decision is made by our elected representatives and not by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels. Brian Foster

Shrivenham, Oxfordshire

SIR – Mr Hammond is right to consider some fisheries concessions, on the understanding that our financial services (our biggest export) will be totally protected.

We shall take back control of all our waters and grant quotas to the EU. As this is exactly the present EU rule in reverse, the EU must surely see it as reasonable. David S King

Liverpool

SIR – The EU’S negotiators are adamant that Britain must not be allowed to “cherry pick”.

Yet it seems to me that they want the trees – not just the cherries. Gillian Lurie

Westgate-on-sea, Kent