Letters / ‘Scandalous dereliction in the duty’
Our new first minister of Scotland was recently reported to have stated that he is not going to throw the workers in the Northeast on the scrap heap; but this statement apparently doesn’t apply to those involved in the fishing industry, as our SNP and Green Party Scottish Government is presently selling off vast areas of our fishing grounds to companies in overseas countries for wind farm development.
We are now also aware that they have additional proposals in place to introduce a number of highly protected marine areas in our Scottish waters which would exclude all forms of fishing in vast areas of what was once our UK nations fishing grounds.
Those fishing grounds are crucial to the survival of fishing communities all around the Scottish coastline.
These actions make it appear that our government are on a mission to wipe out what’s left of the Scottish fishing industry altogether, as this would exclude what’s left of Scotland’s fishing fleets from enormous sea areas containing the valuable assets that have sustained life in our islands and coastal communities for hundreds if not thousands of years.
This situation was recently exacerbated by an agreement made during the Brexit negotiations by the then UK prime minister Boris Johnson; in the guise of taking back control of our nations fishing grounds.
However, reality shows it had the opposite effect with an even larger fleet of EU fishing vessels now being allowed to benefit from the marine assets in the waters surrounding our nation.
Anyone with a suspicious mind might now be thinking that the partnership presently in governance of our country is perhaps being influenced by another organisation from overseas. One that may be on a mission to wipe out what’s left of our nations fishing industry, thus leaving all of our traditional fishing grounds for the benefit of fishing fleets from other nations.
Our Scottish Government’s apparent attitude towards the peripheral fisheries dependant population of Scotland is nothing short of a scandalous dereliction in the duty and should be highlighted and opposed at every opportunity until this appalling and devastating course of action is reversed.
William Polson
Whalsay
