Today’s first letter is from Mike Hookem MEP. He attacks the civils ervants whoe secret meeting was reported in The Sun, addressing the issue of their commiting us to remain entangled in the EU Army via PESCO:

Sir,

I refer to the Whitehall Officials who boasted in a secret meeting with EU Diplomats of how years of future EU/UK defence ties would be hidden from the public. It’s exactly this kind of backroom dealing that caused Brexit in the first place.

As reported in The Sun, Senior Brexit Department official Victoria Billing has likened post-Brexit defence ties – including a pledge to continue spending taxpayers’ money on the developing of an EU Army through PESCO – to a KitKat, with a political framework cover, but with ‘a series of agreements’ underneath.

I oppose any move towards an EU army! This secret meeting is absolutely disgraceful. If Civil Servants think the British people will accept backroom deals that keep us at the heart of EU defence plans and an EU army through PESCO then they are wrong.

It’s exactly this sort of backroom meddling by unelected officials that made the EU so unpopular in the first place. This is not “Yes Prime Minister”! It’s about time unelected officials realised they are there to implement the policies the British people democratically voted for, not make it themselves.

However, I suspect these revelations are the tip of the iceberg, especially after Cabinet Office security adviser Alastair Brockbank told meeting attendees that it was civil servants “who are negotiating the detail of PESCO at the same time as we are discussing the political high-level fluffy bits that will go into any declaration that gets made public.”

I would, therefore, like both the Civil Service and the Government to come clean with the British people!

Do they intend to achieve the independence that 17.4 million people voted for, or are we simply going to remain in the European Union by stealth; making us nothing more than a satellite state to the EU in areas like defence and foreign policy?

As with many aspects of the Brexit negotiation process, ministers have been very vague on the details of what phrases like “continued EU/UK security cooperation” actually mean in reality.

I expect much more of this type of behaviour in the coming weeks, as the EU steps up its anti-Brexit lobbying campaign.

Respectfully, Mike Hookem MEP

The other letter today was sent to us by “Fishing For Leave”. We reproduce it in full because is throws a clear light on what is happening with the Brexit Negotiations: the Whitehall Mandarins are selling us, the people, out – see Mike Hookem’s letter above. They are happy to prove wrong the old song about Britannia ruling the waves, they are happy for Britons to become the slaves of the EU so that their EU ‘comrades’, the Barniers, will still be nice to them:

A Heartfelt Letter by Fishermen Who Feel Forsaken

My name is Steve Barratt and I live in Ramsgate Kent. I work in an industry that is not wanted by either the EU or the UK Government and everything that could have possibly been done to stop me from going to work has been done.

I expect alarm bells are ringing as to what I actually do for a living, could I be a drug runner, a people trafficker, an internet hacker, a hit man or something similar?

Well, you will be pleased to know that I am none of the above – I am in fact a commercial fisherman operating an inshore, under 10m boat out of Ramsgate Harbour.

I work in a mixed fishery and catch quite a variety of fish such as cod, bass, plaice, skate, dogfish, dover sole and many more. It is impossible to avoid these fish when in a situation whereby I have no quota for a particular species.

When I catch fish with no quota the EU ruling is that I must return it to the sea. In most cases these fish are dead or have little chance of survival. The EU are aware of this and despite receiving many protests and plea’s to change the quota system are not prepared to do so.

They are hell bent on making everyone abide by the CFP (Common Fisheries Policy). This is an inept quota system where fish can only be landed if a quota is available. If quotas are not available, they have to be dumped dead into the sea.

To make matters worse, the UK Government are hell bent on enforcing these rules and regulations. They have employed numerous people and organisations to police any fish landings that are made in the UK.

The EU has decreed skates and rays are ‘endangered’ and have given virtually no quota for this species. Fishermen are seeing an explosion in skates and rays, they are everywhere, yet because quotas don’t reflect this we have to dump skate dead into the sea.

We then have to keep catching and dumping skate as we try to catch other fish to make a living. This makes it impossible for a boat to be profitable and does nothing for conservation.

Our Government needs to be held to account over this gross miscarriage of justice and the rules and regulations need to change to provide the industry with a better way of operating. Unfortunately, this cannot be done until we successfully leave the EU.

Only then will we be able to take back control of our territorial waters, abolish the Common Fisheries Policy and implement a better and more sustainable method of management of the industry – the government can’t keep the status quo for the sake of the fishermen or the fish.

Under no circumstances can this industry be involved in any so-called transition period where we’re stuck in the CFP. Out must be out on 29th March next year before what is left of the British fishing industry is consigned to museum and memory.