Tim Baynes' letter goes against opinions of the UK fishing industry, who are 100 per cent for leaving the EU (Letters, May 19, 'Nothing fishy about the EU').

In the past Ted Heath gave UK waters away when the UK signed up to the Common Market. This was followed by a decommissioning scheme that left a fleet of fishing vessels that, with the improvements in gear technology and electronics, were more efficient than all the boats scrapped.

There was the introduction of a licensing scheme based on track record that favoured the larger and more efficient vessels, along with licences being traded at prices ten times the value of some boats.

There was also the introduction of days at sea and a disaster of a discards scheme that saw large quantiles of good-sized saleable fish dumped back into the sea dead.

We now have a fishing industry totally decimated by bureaucrats in Brussels with more fishery inspectors and pen pushers thinking up yet more rules and forms for fishermen to complete.

Young people no longer see fishing as a career, with many boats now employing foreign nationals as crews. Many UK manufacturers of fishing gear have gone out of business and fish processors are in dire straits.

Our seas in some areas are teeming with fish that UK boats are not allowed to catch yet our EU friends can. Visit any fish market in France, Spain and Portugal, where a huge variety of fish is available.

The latest twist is the EU ban on fish sales of bulk mackerel and herring to the Russian Federation, who were a major buyer of these species caught by the Scottish and Irish Pelagic fleet.

Lord Lawson recently said the world is a big place and most of it is not in the EU and it's more profitable than the EU.

So you know where my vote is going!

Peter Gaukroger

Kendal