European Union debate

Sir,

It is quite clear from Mr Angus McCormack’s letter (31 May) that he is on the wrong side of the EU debate, with his reasons for staying ‘in’ as weak as the Labour Party he sides with.

Instead of focussing on the ‘cat fight between two opposing wings of the Conservative Party’ he ought to seriously reflect on the long and weary fight lost by the fishermen of Scotland to the EU over the past 40 years.

Their livelihoods have been wrecked and ruined by the stranglehold of callous rules, regulations, legislations, quotas - all drawn up by dark suit, fat-cat, bureaucrats in Brussels (who know absolutely nothing about fishing and have never been in a trawler in their lives) through their Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). The reality is that their senseless ‘policy’ permanently damaged Scotland’s fishing industry.

CFP was supposed to protect fish stocks without killing fishing communities. Sadly, it’s failed on both counts. Nobody knows that better than the fishermen around Scotland. It is because the EU failed them that you’ll see ‘Fishing for leaving’ banners currently flying around the harbours of Peterhead, Buckie, Fraserburgh, along with other north-east coast seaports.

These once prosperous and flourishing fishing ports are now more like ‘ghost’ ports thanks to ‘we know best’ fishy officials in Brussels. One fisherman is on record as rightly saying that all EC quotas have ‘sold the Scottish fishing industry down the river.’ Because of these quotas there was only one thing that many of these fishermen could do – unwillingly they were forced to do it, as they were left with no other choice. From the quaysides of Scotland to the scrap yards of Europe, one fishing boat after another was floated away for decommissioning.

Listen to the heart-breaking words of Paul Stewart, the skipper of the Poseidon, when he had to get rid of his boat. ‘The EU calls the process decommissioning… It's more like bereavement. I'm going to a friend's funeral. This vessel is my life's work, now it's going to be cut up. The boat's nine years old but there's still 20 or 30 years' life left in her and yet she's going to be ripped to pieces and melted down. This is just a waste of money - it doesn't make sense.’

No, it doesn’t make sense and the EU doesn’t make sense. What a pity Mr McCormack doesn’t see it that way. Maybe he should listen to fisherman across the Island, who I’m sure have their own sad and demoralising ‘quotas and decommissioning’ stories to tell.

There could be no more eloquent epitaph on the destruction of Scotland, and indeed, Britain’s once-proud fishing industry than the recent revelation that 23 per cent of the entire fishing quota Brussels allows Britain now goes to a…wait for it…single giant Dutch trawler, the Cornelis Vrolijk, to land all its catches in Holland! Yes, mindboggling and absurd.

Hopefully, Mr McCormack will now see why we must all be ‘fishing for leaving' the sinking EU trawler and safely come ashore at the Brexit quayside in June.

Donald J Morrison

85 Old Edinburgh Road

Inverness.

Letter: European Union destroyed Scotland's fishing industry

6 June 2016