The MoD has allocated four patrol boats to police or protect UK fisheries as we go into post-EU ‘self-isolation’. Sending in naval vessels smacks of an earlier imperial era. So has the charade that is Brexit come to that?

Why not go the whole hog and deploy HMS Queen Elizabeth and a clutch of F-35 Lightnings to really put the frighteners on ‘Johnnie Foreigner’? At all costs we must defend our British fish against our NATO allies. Little wonder that Russia is so partial to Brexit. They’re rubbing their hands together in Moscow and not just to keep warm.

I’m concerned about distinguishing our fish from theirs. How can we identify UK fish? After all they won’t always be accompanied by a bag of chips. How can our plucky little men-of-war know when to raise the alarm and signal ‘Hostile haddock approaching, ten fathoms, bearing four-zero (other bearings also available), two-point-three nautical miles’? Conversely, what if our fish stray and get fished by those EU buccaneers? The situation could escalate. ‘Shoaly’ not!

I can envisage heroic movies such as ‘One of our Halibut is Missing’, reminiscent of WWII propaganda films, breaking box office records.

A lot of codswallop has been spouted over this issue. Government policy is all at sea. However, we’ll manage, as we do, since it’s in our nature, but things could have been much better.

Derek Reed, Middlethorpe Drive, York

Gunboats aren’t the way to resolve fishing dispute

At the time of writing a no deal Brexit looks likely and the government seems to be planning to deploy Royal Navy ships to patrol the North Sea to keep out EU fishing vessels.

The fishing industry represents 0.02 per cent of the economy and 80 per cent of our catch is currently sold to the EU.

I can’t imagine they will keep on buying from us under these circumstances so this action is not helping our own fishermen.

I am seriously beginning to wonder if Boris Johnson is genuinely insane.

He is sacrificing the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of British citizens and the British economy with it just to satisfy his own ideological ego.

What happened to ‘a deal will be easy because the EU needs us more than we need them’ (40 per cent of our exports currently go to the EU and only 16 per cent of theirs come to us)?

What happened to the ‘we will be better off and prosper outside the EU’ promise?

Even Nigel Farage is now backtracking on this.

In a recent radio interview he said ‘I never said we would be better off’.

How long before the country wakes up and kicks Johnson and the ERG out?

Surely there must be some decent Tory backbenchers willing to put the country before politics?

Tony Taylor, Grassholme, Woodthorpe, York