European countries have banned flights and ferries carrying passengers from the UK in a desperate attempt to suppress the spread of a new variant of the coronavirus that has plunged south-east England into a tier 4 lockdown.
In the most dramatic development, France announced it was suspending passenger and human-handled freight transport from the UK for 48 hours from 11pm GMT. The Road Haulage Association warned the move would have a “devastating effect” on supply chains already disrupted by Brexit stockpiling and pandemic restrictions.
The UK government said it expected “significant disruption in Kent” as a result of the French move and was “urging everybody – including all hauliers” to avoid travelling to ports in the county until further notice.
The travel bans came as the latest figures showed the new variant of Covid-19 is causing an alarming rise in infections, particularly in London and south-east England, with UK cases rising by 35,928 on Sunday morning – the fourth time in a week that the daily figure has exceeded 30,000.
As countries including Germany, Italy, Ireland and the Netherlands introduced bans on arrivals from the UK , British ministers admitted the latest lockdown measures – imposed just days before Christmas and with the immediate shutting down of high street stores in the busiest week of the year – may have to remain in place for months.
Amid deepening criticism of Boris Johnson’s handling of the pandemic, senior Conservative MPs have reacted angrily to the timing of the lockdown, with some accusing the prime minister of deliberately delaying a decision to place millions of people in London and the south-east under new measures to avoid parliamentary scrutiny.