This is to be found on page 10 of the Newsletter:

Extracts from Presentations by Chairman and Honorary Chairman to Richard Lochhead 26 October 2011


Sandy Patience, Chairman

All political parties agree and admit that the CFP has been a disaster for the conservation of fish stocks and the communities which depend on their livelihoods.

When are you and your officials ever going to realise that the CFP has nothing whatever to do with conservation but all to do with the principle of equal access to the common resource?

Get rid of the UK fleet to the advantage of other member States.

The magnitude of further proposed cuts in TACs will jeopardize many businesses especially those of the west of Scotland. FAL has been subjected to all kinds of accusations over the years bordering on questioning the sanity of our views. But as we rightly predicted many years ago the fleet is being slowly but surely reduced. Is it too much to ask for an apology not only from the Scottish Government but the UK

Government and those fishing industry bodies that actively supported policies that have led to the demise of so many family businesses? He who soweth the wind, reapeth the whirlwind.

It is fair to say that all of us who have told the truth all these years about the CFP have been accused of all sorts of unpleasant things, including lunacy. Even now, as all sorts of celebrities talk ignorantly about what they see as the main problem, discards (not that is not a problem but it is the effect not the cause) the reality of the situation seems to be beyond the average politician and political commentator.

Tom Hay, Honorary Chairman

No aspect of the United Kingdom’s suicidal involvement with the European Union is more flagrant than the downright treachery, lies and distortions from the truth, which has brought about the deliberate and almost total destruction of the British White Fish fleet.

The Fishing Debates recorded in Hansard in 1972, and the subsequent revelations within the Public Record Office after the end of the 30 year secrecy rule, make it absolutely clear that the CFP has nothing whatever to do with conservation, but would have catastrophic consequences for British fishermen when the derogations terminate.

And yet successive Fisheries Ministers have been going to Brussels for years, and have been subjected to a dreamed up delusion that the system introduced in 1983 of National Quotas and all their attachments, is the Common Fisheries Policy, they have been forced to negotiate with the Commission supposedly for the benefit of our fishermen on the basis of that pernicious lie.

Cod recovery plans, Conservation credit schemes, Real time closures, on board observers, on board cameras, never ending reductions in fishing effort and quota are all allegedly intended to protect our marine environment, and conserve our fish stocks.

In reality the calculated well planned intention behind all this, is to regulate the Scottish and British fishing industries out of existence altogether. This whole programme is cleverly pre-arranged to distract our fishermen away from the actual, secretive, well concealed demands of the EU treaties, that they have to be driven out of their own fishing grounds, to make way for the fishermen of the other member states on the principle of non-discrimination, and without increasing fishing effort.

Richard, to allow this vital renewable National asset to remain within the control of an un-elected foreign power in Brussels, is a crime against the British people, and an undeniable violation of their legitimate constitutional rights. Surely no MP, or MSP who says he is determined to put Scotland’s interests first would allow such a serious scenario to continue. But not even to mention to the Scottish people that such a critical situation exists is beyond the bounds of credibility.

There is only one way of escape, and we need your help to get it Richard. We must be disentangled from the shackles of this horrendous Common Fisheries Policy, so that we can regain control of our potentially rich fishing grounds which are rightfully ours according to international law. There is not one moment to lose. Let us direct all our energies towards it, so that we may find it before it is finally too late.

It might be that it is already too late but it certainly will be if we do not face up to the truth of what the CFP is all about and what will happen when the real CFP is in place.

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