Boris Johnson has sought to assure the public he is working swiftly to re-open Channel ports to freight as dozens of countries sealed their borders to the UK following the emergence of a virulent new coronavirus strain.
The Prime Minister emerged from a Cobra crisis management meeting to tell a televised press conference he and French President Emmanuel Macron were “working on a solution” to sort the situation “in the next few hours”.
But with millions of pounds worth of live shellfish exports from Scotland heading to the biggest continental market of the year the PM gave no firm guarantees of resolving the issue.
After a day of wrangling to get the Dover ports open and being challenged by journalists on "over-promising" throughout the crisis all Johnson could say was: “We are working with our friends across the Channel to unblock the flow of trade as fast as possible.”
Johnson added: "The Government at all levels is communicating with our friends in Paris.
“I have just spoken to President Macron, we had a very good call.
“And we both understand each other’s positions and want to resolve these problems as fast as possible.”
France did look set to lift its ban on freight traffic to and from Britain imposed on Sunday night.
The French government on Monday announced it would “establish a solid health protocol to ensure that movement from the UK can resume”, though no time frame was given.
EU Ministers were due to meet later on Monday to co-ordinate European-wide response as many countries moved to stop flights coming from the UK.
Amid fears of disruption to the UK food supply in the run-up to Christmas, Johnson stressed delays occurring in Dover only affect human-handled freight, which is 20 per cent of the freight coming in to the port.
Johnson also used the press conference to report more than 500,000 people have received their first dose of the pandemic vaccine as his government grappled to understand the new, more spreadable version of the virus discovered in south-east England.
But chief scientific officer Sir Patrick Vallance suggested he expected the new variant of the coronavirus to spread across the country and he made it clear that more regions of England could soon be moved into Tier 4.
He said: “The evidence on this virus is that it spreads easily, it’s more transmissible, we absolutely need to make sure we have the right level of restrictions in place.
“I think it is likely that this will grow in numbers of the variant across the country and I think it’s likely, therefore, that measures will need to be increased in some places, in due course, not reduced."
Labour’s Shadow health minister Dr Rosena Allin-Khan tweeted: “A second press conference for Johnson but still nobody in (Government) has taken responsibility for Christmas plans being ruined.”
“The (Government) is guilty of neglect, incompetence and delay. Johnson sits at the top of that decision making process and should take responsibility and apologise.”
