Herring aid

I can remember standing on the heaving deck of a herring drifter on a wet, bitterly cold Saturday morning in the early 1950s. When we got the nets in, the total miserable catch would barely have filled a laundry basket. The drooping shoulders and silence of the usually bantering crew told it all; we were players in the rapidly-closing final chapter in the history of the once great inshore herring industry.

No doubt other factors were involved but the main reasons for the decline were over-fishing and destruction of the environment of the target crop by some of the fishing methods which had come into common use, and that was 30 years before we had to share resources with our European partners and operate under the terms of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP).

The CFP no doubt has played some part in maintaining the sustainability of stocks (now mainly deep sea) even with the necessity of sharing with other EU countries.

I don’t think our fishermen want to deprive their European brothers of a living, as happened to their grandfathers in the past. What they want is more say in the management of that living and how it should be shared, rather than being simply pawns in political games – at last week’s First Minister’s Questions the show of faux anger at the proposed small delay in achieving this situation by an MSP whose party position is actually that of its continued total surrender was wondrous to behold.

The extension of untrammelled (pun intended, the word derives from an early type of herring net) entry into European markets for our own fishermen (including the all-important salmon and shellfish industries) and the opportunity of an amicable negotiation of some mutually acceptable sharing of fishing grounds and markets in the future is surely worth the cost of such a small wait. (DR) A MCCORMICK

Kirkland Road Terregles, Dumfries Brian Wilson’s excellent analysis of Scottish fishing exposed inconvenient truths for all sides (Perspective, 23 March).

I fear this dispute is small fry compared to the torrent of lobbying we will endure from every industrial, cultural, academic, political and social organisation in the country as they clamour for a say in the final agreement, especially since many sectors dwarf fishing. Scotland’s finance industry, for example, employs ten times more people.

Judging by the way the SNP struggles to reconcile historic opposition to the CFP with obvious cracks in its current EU attitude in order to destabilise the UK’S negotiating position, it looks like we’ll soon see a Kew Garden-scale plantation of glass houses sprouting across the political landscape as other politicians and parties struggle to hide and spin their own flawed EU track record and policies.

One thing in Scotland’s favour is that while our industry may be comparatively tiny, it is the same for most EU countries. Fishing accounts for 1.5 per cent of GDP in Denmark, 1 per cent in Spain and 2 per cent in Scotland. When we get to the short strokes, fishing might not be such a showstopper for any country. ALLAN SUTHERLAND Willow Row, Stonehaven I find the SNP Government’s position on fish quotas laughable. They are lambasting Theresa May’s government for agreeing to the continuation of quotas until the end of the transition period while still being determined to rejoin the EU at the earliest opportunity, so handing back full control of quotas to Brussels. It is hypocrisy on stilts. It cost them numerous seats in the North East in the last general election and will lose them many more at the next Holyrood election in 2021.

JACK WATT Berstane Loan., St Ola, Orkney