Fishing trade-off shows we are on the way to vassal state status

FOLLOWING the result of the EU referendum I wrote a contribution to these pages predicting that two major industries would have their interests ring-fenced during the negotiations to create a trade agreement with the remaining EU members. The first, the big priority, would be financial services, guaranteeing the City of London continuing passporting arrangements; the second, tariff-free arrangements for the export and import of cars. Everything else would be up for grabs and tradeable according to the priorities of the day.

It didn’t take a genius to work this out. Both David Cameron and Theresa May had given out the clearest signals that these interests above all would be protected and the president of Nissan was given practically a state visit. The City needed no such fuss as its power over the Conservative Party and in Parliament itself cannot be understated. Its needs will be met.

Not so fishing, a major concern for Scotland. Access and quotas were up for grabs and the first of the great heists has been unleashed on an unsuspecting Scotland. Scottish interests were not considered, our representatives not consulted. Fishing rights have been traded off for something else (“Scots Tories: We’ll oust May if she betrays our fishermen”, The Herald, March 20). What else we do not know.

Fishing was part of the 25 powers recently considered reserved or “temporarily reserved” to Westminster. Agriculture will be next and so on, working through the 25, and negotiating whichever elements within them can be used to secure interests which Westminster considers more important than Scottish interests.

We will be told piece by piece which remaining parts of these powers will be handed eventually to Scotland. Only a few remnants I would suspect and they will have been terminally weakened – and irreversible. So it’s “watch this space” for further disappointment and indignation. We are now on the road to vassal state status and I’m not sure our nation has sufficient collective strength or courage to resist. Independence offered us that, but we refused.

Ian Mclaren,

27 Buchanan Drive, Lenzie.

PRIOR to the EU referendum, I argued with friends that it would be better to stay inside this “club” and use time and our membership to reform by consensus where change is deemed to be required.

My concern now is that we are so weakened that the EU has the UK over the proverbial barrel.

If, just maybe, Britain changes its mind, I doubt that Brussels would return anything like the terms on fishing and agriculture and other support that has been provided. For all of its faults the EU did control stocks, but it had to when other member states had decimated their stocks and had to get into Britain’s waters ( France and Spain in particular).

Why can’t Britain (England) see the mess that the Leave group is creating?

Ian Gray,

Low Cottage, Croftamie.

TO describe political rhetoric as debased is something of an oxymoron, since the term “rhetoric” itself implies debasement of an argument, but surely Scottish Conservative MP Douglas Ross has ventured beyond the red line of propriety with his analogy, given the unsatisfactory transitional fishing arrangements under the transitional stage of Brexit, “It would be easier to get someone to drink a pint of cold sick than try to sell this as a success”. I challenge him to repeat that in the next Conservative manifesto.

On the same topic, his colleague, MP John Lamont, toiled in an interview on Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland (March 20) to support previous Conservative utterances about defending to the death the rights of Scottish fishermen, so much so that he was driven to blaming the big bad wolf of Scottish politics, the SNP, which, by advocating Remain would retain EU domination of fishing in Scottish waters. But Remain was the key plank of the majority of Conservatives, including Scottish leader Ruth Davidson, and of the then Conservative Westminster Government, in the EU referendum campaign – so the Tories and the SNP were both singing from the same hymn sheet.

Plus ca change...

Douglas R Mayer,

76 Thomson Crescent, Currie.

A PROPOS the EU and the UK agreeing the Brexit transition terms, thereby paving the way for future negotiations, a speech made by the Conservative MP Jacob Rees-mogg in the House of Commons following the serving of Article 50 made me smile again: “Does she [Theresa May] recall the words of Francis Drake? ‘There must be a beginning of any great matter, but the continuing unto the end until it be thoroughly finished yields the true glory’. I wish her good luck in her negotiations, until she comes to true glory and is welcomed back to this house as a 21st century Gloriana. P Fabien,

41 Kingsborough Gardens, Glasgow.

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PETER A Russell (Letters, March 17) seems to have kicked the hornet’s nest of Nationalist reaction (Letters, March 20) by pointing out the anti-english flavour of Brian Cox’s contribution on BBC Question Time. In particular, Alasdair Galloway’s assertion that “it is wrong to compare the economic union of the EU with the political union of the UK” blithely ignores the fact that, in the context of Brexit, Nicola Sturgeon and other prominent Nationalists are currently making such comparisons on a daily, or even more frequent, basis. It sometimes appears that, contrary to Mr Galloway’s beliefs, comparing the unions of the EU and the UK is the Nationalists’ only strategy. But that’s OK. Logic, facts and evidence don’t come into it when defending the sacred cow of independence.

As for the denial that Scottish Nationalism is in any way antienglish: I’m old enough to remember when being anti-english was the only string to the SNP’S bow. In the 1970s and 80s when, incidentally, most of the current senior SNP leadership joined the party, there would be very little other motivation for doing so. That the language has been modified in recent years says more for the need to pretend moderation to buy votes than it does to the underlying emotional tug of nationalism’s need to create enemies where none exist. Brian Cox deserves our praise and thanks for disinterring the nasty reality and exposing it, once again, to the light of day.

Alex Gallagher,

Labour Councillor North Coast and Cumbraes,

North Ayrshire Council,

12 Phillips Avenue, Largs.