SNP would let fishing industry founder on the rocks of the EU

THE SNP leadership should count to 10 before pitching in to the Brexit debate. So often in their rush to suggest the latest development on Brexit will somehow strengthen the case for Scottish independence, they instead highlight the opposite. The understandable concerns of Scotland’s fishing industry about whether they will be given proper priority in an eventual Brexit deal are a case in point.

Following the EU referendum result the SNP has sought to convince us that the EU matters more to Scotland than the UK. So when it comes to our fishing industry, the SNP is prepared to let it founder as part of the EU’S ever closer union project.

While some Scottish politicians rightly argue the case for winning back control over our own fishing waters, it is clear that the SNP has long ago decided that the SNP’S ultimate constitutional ambition will always be put before what it views as simply the inconvenient realities of our fishing communities. Keith Howell,

White Moss, West Linton, Peeblesshire.

THE demand from Brussels to keep EU access to British fishing waters is outrageous, to say the least. Bringing back control of our fisheries was a key issue in the EU referendum campaign. Our fishing communities have long suffered under the EU’S Common Fisheries Policy. It would be a monumental betrayal to accept this demand.

The EU has already benefited quite handsomely at the expense of many Scottish fishermen whose livelihoods were wrecked and ruined by their stranglehold of rules, regulations, legislations and quotas. And because of these imposed quotas many of the once-prosperous and flourishing fishing ports around the Scottish coast are now more like ghost ports thanks to “we know best” officials in Brussels. Excuse me, Brussels, but the UK wants its waters back, all of it – Brexit has made that clear.

Deal or no deal, the UK must come off the Brussels gravy train, and leave the EU, at 11pm on

March 29, 2019, never to go back. Donald J Morrison,

85 Old Edinburgh Road, Inverness.

ON the subject of fishing, Bill Brown (Letters, March 22) refers to Scottish ”nationalist cherry picking” and tells us what a narrow escape we have had from Scottish independence or “we would have been ruled condescendingly by Brussels”. Mr Brown informs us that by leaving the EU we will now be looking to “invest in new boats and will be setting sail to harvest our sovereign seas”, although I have not heard a word of these developments from the Westminster Government. Nor have I heard anything about the UK’S own self-imposed quotas after Brexit to stop this bountiful harvest resulting in our seas being plundered once again and left barren, followed by the subsequent scrapping of boats.

Clearly Mr Brown is a British nationalist and, given his support for Brexit, he will be able to tell us once the UK has left the EU of the direct benefits of separatism. As to being ruled condescendingly, regardless of political persuasion, I think there are few who could point to a better example of how Theresa May and the Conservatives are currently treating Scotland.

Alan M Morris,

20 Kirkhouse Road, Blanefield. WE keep being told Brexit will restore our sovereignty and selfdetermination yet in the last few days our fishermen have been told the EU will continue to determine their quotas for the next few years and today it has been revealed that De La Rue of Gateshead have not won the contract to print our passports and our new dark bluecovered British passports will be printed and produced by a French company.

In the 1960s and 70s Whitehall Farces used to be the highlight of the London theatre scene. Seems they are having a revival.

George Mckenzie,

Rubha nan Gall, 48 Ardbeg Road, Rothesay, Bute.

THE crass stupidity of Nigel Farage, Jacob Rees-mogg and other opportunist supporters of Brexit was very neatly illustrated by the photograph accompanying your piece about fisheries policy (“May warned by rebels to tear up ‘completely unacceptable’ fish deal”, The Herald, March 22). In the middle of the 19th century, Parliament was forced to close due to the “Great Stink” from decaying organic matter in the Thames. In Mr Rees-mogg we have an MP who is so clearly in favour of a return to a Victorian England that he is seen adding dead organic matter to the Thames to help recreate the conditions of that time. More seriously, the stunt is evidence of the cavalier attitude to the environment that will prevail if the Brexit extremists get their way. We can expect to see an increase in pollution and a return to the unregulated over-fishing of UK waters of the past.

At the very least, it is to be hoped that the Environment Agency will see fit to prosecute these idiots for their actions.

Dr RM Morris,

Veslehaug, Polesburn, Methlick.

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The Editor, The Herald, 200 Renfield Street, Glasgow G2 3QB; e-mail: letters@theherald.co.uk

THE replies (March 22) to Alex Gallagher’s letter of March 21 regarding anti-england sentiment as an ingredient of Scottish Nationalism are an education in themselves, notably a perfect example of “some of my best friends are...’”and, as a bonus, a quite chilling reprise of Winnie Ewing’s Thatcheresque “enemy within” rhetoric.

It is quite easy to imagine the aftermath if the Brexit referendum had turned out differently: those supporters of the SNP who support EU membership would have said “thank god for that, the EU is not perfect, but we have to live with it and seek to change it from within.”. In contrast, in the identical case of the status quo having been confirmed in the case of Scotland’s referendum in 2014, they never stop their peevish and contrived complaining and noisome agitation for a re-run.

Those of us who disagree with Scottish nationalism simply wish for the outcome of the democratic vote taken freely by Scots to be respected and accepted in the same way, and for a political environment which is focused on improving the lives of Scots and English, Welsh and Northern Irish people alike, where we work and debate together to build a better UK from within. Scottish Nationalists, however, insist on driving whatever wedge they can between us, forever putting their own narrow political interest above the greater good. Their attitude towards England is an integral part of the same divisive and debilitating whole, no matter how much they try to excuse it or explain it away.

Peter A Russell,

87 Munro Road,

Jordanhill, Glasgow.