In 1973, Prime Minister Edward Heath used the UK’s 200 mile fishing waters as the final acquiscence to join the Common Market. Our fishing industry and the coastal communities have suffered catastrophic decline ever since.

Heath agreed that fish should be a common resource available to all members of the European project, even those having no national coastline.

Today EU boats catch 60 per cent of the fish in UK waters. Why did the Conservative Government give away our precious resource?

Taking back control of our fishing waters and rebuilding an industry worth an estimated £6.3bn is a red line in fulfilling our vote for independence in the referendum.

The majority of residents in the iconic fishing town of Brixham, plus the fishermen of Dartmouth and Salcombe, were devastated to hear Theresa May’s Mansion House speech on March 2, as it sounded as if she is prepared to use our fishing industry as a bargaining chip again, this time to smooth the way as the UK leaves the EU.

For “continuing to work together”, those of us anxious to leave the Common Fisheries Policy on March 29, 2019, read “continued dictation of fishing rules from Brussels”. For “continuing to manage shared stocks”, we read “continued EU pillaging of fish stocks from UK waters”; and for “continued reciprocal access”, we read “continued domination of UK waters by EU fishing vessels”.

We want our fishermen to have a fair chance at catching the fish in our waters.

The British fleet caught 111,000 tonnes of fish from EU waters last year, but EU vessels caught 683,000 tonnes in British waters. (MMO Report, October 2017).

While we are willing to work with the international community on setting levels of responsible and sustainable fishing in our waters it is the British who should decide what we can and can’t catch. A second betrayal of our fishing communities will be so symbolic and transparent that the general public will not be deceived.

In 2016, the majority of us voted that we want our country back. On March 29, 2019, we demand our 200-mile fishing waters back.

Ceri Jayes

Chairman, Totnes branch UKIP

Lower Warren Road Kingsbridge