TWENTY-FOUR hours after seafood workers descended on Downing Street to protest crippling trade barriers as a result of Brexit, Boris Johnson’s government has come under fire as meat exporters face chaos.
It has emerged tonnes of meat have been left rotting in European ports due to newly introduced red tape, potentially spelling disaster for Scotland’s high-quality exports.
The Times reported that hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of fresh produce has been impounded because it does not having the correct paperwork.
British Meat Processors Association chief executive Nick Allen lamented the post-Brexit trade arrangements.
“The new post-Brexit customs system for meat products is convoluted, archaic and badly implemented,” he said.
“If continental supermarkets are unable to have products delivered the way they need them to be, this trade will simply be lost as EU customers abandon UK suppliers and source product from European processors.”
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Concerns have been voiced about Scottish exporters, with SNP Holyrood candidate Fergus Mutch raising the alarm in the north east.
Aberdeenshire, the home of Aberdeen Angus cattle, is world renowned for producing top quality Scotch beef and lamb — with local firms having developed strong export links to key European markets in France, Italy, Belgium and Holland.
It’s feared the threat to the quality status of the Scotch label could put pressure on the entire supply chain.
Aberdeenshire West candidate Mutch said: “This is seriously bad news for our quality meat sector who export to high value markets across Europe.
“We saw this coming a mile off, but the UK Government failed to prepare in the five years since the Brexit vote.
“Now businesses will be left to pay the price — with exporters and processors struggling to get their product to market while tied up in red tape. Any threat to that reputation for freshness and quality, impacts on the standing of the product, and if demand starts to decline then its farmers themselves who will suffer.
“The UK government needs to act and act now to remove these barriers.”
A total of £1.2 billion of Scottish food is sold to the EU every year, making it the industry’s largest export market.
Mutch added: “Each and every one of us can do our best meanwhile to eat more locally sourced Scotch beef, lamb and pork.
“But that will never be enough to replace our high value exports — upon which many livelihoods depend.
“The SNP wants to see Scotland back inside the world’s biggest single market and customs union before long, as an independent country. That’s the best future for Scottish farming and our food and drink sector.”
After seafood hauliers staged a protest in Westminster, Boris Johnson insisted he understands the “frustrations” of businesses which rely on exporting their good to Europe.
The Prime Minister commented: “I sympathise very much and understand their frustrations, and things have been exacerbated by Covid, and the demand hasn’t been what it was before the pandemic and that’s one of the problems we’re trying to deal with.
“Where businesses, through no fault of their own, have faced difficulties exporting where there is a genuine willing buyer, there’s a £23 million fund to help out.”
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