Readers' letters - March 27

Being Brexiteer-in-Chief to many people I know, I have been plagued by people describing the deal to keep us in the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) until the end of 2020 as treachery by the Government.

One or two of them are even MPs.

In 1973, Ted Heath agreed that the UK would sign over its fishing waters to the EU under the CFP.

The EU invented this as a term of entry because the countries that joined with us – Ireland and Denmark and potentially Norway – also had huge fishing waters and the EU wanted control of them so that the French et al could exploit them beyond the provision of the 1964 London Agreement.

On reading the CFP, Norway declined the entry terms, while Heath seemingly lied to Parliament and our entry into the EU squeezed through by eight votes.

Had Parliament known the truth, it wouldn’t have.

Consequently, the EU has kindly ran our fisheries for us for 45 years.

We no longer have our own fisheries ministry, we don’t have a fishing policy, we no longer have the expertise required to run one, we don’t have the necessary infrastructure needed, we don’t have the protection vessels to police the newly recovered waters and, above all, we don’t have the trawlers to exploit the newly recovered fish stocks.

We can re-establish all these things, but it won’t happen overnight.

The current deal gives us more time to put the necessary things in place.

After 45 years, two more won’t make any difference.

Tony Homewood

via email

brexit

No point in another vote

Contributor Mike Harwood is another voice to add to the referendum re-run campaign (LP Letters, March 23).

The reasons he gives get more fanciful by the day.

Apparently leaving the EU will leave us open to wholesale milk poisoning.

I’m surprised he didn’t add this to the threats of death of all the first born, the plague of locusts and the onset of eternal darkness we were also warned about.

He gloats of the £350m per week promised to the NHS being a fabrication.

We are still full members of the rigid EU for another 12 months and are still shovelling our contributions into its back pocket.

Mr Harwood really needn’t concern himself with a re-run of the vote.

In 12 months’ time, we throw off the shackles of the suffocating EU.

We regain control of our borders, our law-making, our fishing grounds, our ability to spend our money where it best benefits us.

T May and her shrewd hard-nosed negotiating team have shown the EU’s Juncker / Barnier pair that we hold all the aces.

After leaving, EU citizens will still be able to come and go freely.

The ECJ will still have to approve much of our legislation.

We will pay a nose-bleeding minimum £40bn into the bottomless EU coffers, despite not being a member.

The EU will still fish our waters and set their own quotas, despite the UK not being allowed into the discussions.

So why bother with another vote?

I would be despondent until I remind myself of the toxic yesterday’s deadheads Mr Harwood has aligned himself with – for example Blair, Major, Mandelson, Cable, Milliband, Clarke, et

al.

He also has the ultimate weapon on board – our rabid pro-EU Civil Service.

It doesn’t work and can’t be fired.

Pete Hanslip

Lostock Hall

nhs

Fantastic news for our region

The announcement that Lancashire will have a new medical school is fantastic news for the region and means that our community

will directly benefit from having the future generation of talented doctors train here (LP March 20).

I am really pleased that Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has selected Edge Hill University, pictured, as

one of five across the country to help students realise their dream of becoming doctors.

I believe this shows this government’s commitment to our region.

As Mr Hunt said, in a decade’s time, we will have to address the challenge of having around one million more over 75s, which is why we need to recruit more talented health professionals from places such as Lancashire.

Across the North West, there are already 1,859 more hospital doctors in place since 2010, but if we are to look to the future, we need to foster more young talent in our rural and coastal communities, which have traditionally been seen

as difficult places to recruit.

Too often students

who wanted to train as doctors or nurses often

head for the capital, but 90 per cent of these new places will be based outside of London.

This will help talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds realise their dream.

Peter Malpas

Chorley