Letters / Candidates, where do you stand on the fishing industry?
As the May elections to the Scottish Parliament approaches, we will have a plethora of candidates promising the earth. Here, in Shetland, it will probably be the usual two horse race between the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party.
Fastest out of the traps has been the SNP candidate Hannah Mary Goodlad. In a slick campaign, Hannah Mary is promising all sorts of things for when she “gets into government” and has “a seat at the table”.
Well good luck to her, she seems full of bounce and energy, regarding tunnels, ferries and windmills etc.
However – and this applies to all the other candidates – perhaps she, and they, can give us some indication on how they intend to regenerate the Shetland whitefish fleet, a pale shadow of its former self, where some of the boats are approaching 40 years in existence.
The fact that nine young men joined the whitefish fleet last year, is deemed headline news.
When I left school, Shetland had a large fleet, but there were still not enough boats to accommodate the number of boys who wanted to pursue a career at the fishing.
The foundation stones of the prosperous Shetland we all enjoy today were laid by the fishing industry, both ashore and afloat, long before oil and gas were ever heard of, far less wind farms.
What our candidates need to tell us is this: will they be standing for an independent, or a devolved Scotland?
Speaking personally, I would be all in favour of independence, if I knew Scotland would become like Norway, and exploit the bounty of oil, gas, and fish, which lie around our shores.
So will any of our candidates be standing on a ticket, such as that, or will they be in favour of current government policies – both at Westminster and Holyrood – of becoming a rule taking colony of the EU, and are they in favour of the Net Zero lunacy of covering Scotland’s beautiful countryside, farmland, and prolific fishing grounds, with windmills and solar panels?
In one of her videos, Hannah Mary speaks about the unfair share of the Fisheries Development Fund, which came to Scotland and Shetland. A good and fair point, but to me this completely misses the bigger picture.
Scotland and Shetland sit in the middle of some the most prolific fishing grounds in the world. If properly managed, these grounds could provide hundreds of jobs both ashore and afloat (it did before, so why not again?) and inject millions of pounds into the economy, not to mention the supply of a healthy and sustainable food source.
Instead, we are reduced to squabbling over scraps, shoved our way, by uncaring governments, at both Holyrood and Westminster, who regard the fishing industry as nothing more than a tradeable pawn.
We will undoubtedly be told that upon an independent Scotland joining the EU, a good deal will be negotiated for Scotland’s fishermen. I’m afraid, but that is pie in the sky and for the birds – ask the Irish.
After Brexit, as far as fishing was concerned, the EU has scored on two fronts.
Firstly, instead of Boris Johnson standing his ground – when the EU Treaties and all their attachments ceased to exist – he caved in to intense blackmail and bullying pressure from the EU and virtually carried over the complete Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) into The Trade and Cooperation Agreement.
This agreement has been an utter disaster, as EU fleets have continued to fish within our Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), unrestricted and unmonitored, both ashore and afloat.
Johnson’s sell out has been helped on its way for a further 12 years by the treachery of the arch remainer Keir Starmer, as he seeks to ingratiate the UK back into the EU.
Secondly, due to Brexit, the EU lost control of the UK’s 200-mile EEZ, to which equal access to a common resource had, but now no longer applied.
Imagine EU waters in terms of a pie; a pie which accommodates the EU fishing fleet, fishing under the Treaties agreement of equal access to a common resource.
Suddenly, following Brexit, the UK is no longer contributing the largest slice of the pie, but the rapacious EU fleet still has got to be fed. So, what happens? Well equal access still has got to be applied and that is what is happening in Irish Waters, now the largest contributor to common EU fishing grounds.
This is much to the detriment of the Irish fishing fleet, which, in shades of the decimation of the UK whitefish fleet, has got to be pushed out of its own waters, to make way for equal access.
If an independent Scotland joins, and becomes a colony of the EU, then Scottish waters will simply become part of the fish pie, to be fished under the equal access principle, with little or no benefit to Scottish fishermen.
I go back to a point I made at the beginning. Are we going to progress and, hopefully, let these nine young men one day build their own boats, as we had the privilege to do?
We have the resources, which, at the moment and for a long time, have been criminally mismanaged. We also have international law in the shape of The United Nation’s Law of the Sea (which the EU, a co-signatory of this treaty shamefully ignores) on our side, which categorically states that a sovereign country has the right to exploit the resources, within its EEZ, for the benefit of its own fishermen.
So, tell us, candidates, where do you stand on the fishing industry?
Are you in favour of reclaiming the UK’s EEZ and attempting to rebuild the fleet, or do you stand for the continual decline under the present shocking mismanagement.
Magnie Stewart
Bressay
