Fury at Boris’s £27m post-Brexit failure over Greenland trade pact – fish & chips at risk

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The introduction of post-Brexit trade tariffs has caused Royal Greenland, which employs some 2,000 people, to lose out on contracts with several UK supermarket and catering businesses. Managing director Randall Jennings said it would now be “significantly cheaper” to ship fish from Greenland via India rather than export them directly to Britain after the introduction of the 20 percent trade levy. His firm usually supplies around 4,000 tonnes of prawns to pubs, restaurants and supermarkets in the UK.

It was also expected to ship an extra 1,800 tonnes of cooked and peeled prawns to some of our largest supermarkets, but the businesses have pulled out of deals because of uncertainties over a UK-Greenlandic trade pact.

Mr Jennings told Express.co.uk: “The deal should basically be done, why can’t they sign it?

“All they need to do is sign what has been exchanged or copy and paste the contract from the Canada deal or something like that, yet this delay is killing businesses.

“We should basically sign the same deal with Greenland but because of administrative bottlenecks or delays jobs and profits are lost that cannot be made back.

“There will potentially have to be job losses in the UK because of this.

“The supermarkets say that they much prefer to use Greenlandic prawns for their taste and texture, but with a 20 percent tariff they cannot do it.

“Even if we had a six percent tariff as with some other fish products they could do it, but this tariff is killing us.”

The business chief warned that Britain could soon suffer a prawn sandwich shortage, as well as a hit to its fish and chips supplies, unless the trade deal is agreed quickly.

Any job losses are likely to fall in the UK with Royal Greenland employing people in both Manchester and Greenland.

It will also have a devastating impact on smaller Greenlandic fishing communities that rely on doing business with Britain.

Mr Jennings said that around 70 percent of Greenland’s cooked and peeled prawns were normally sent to the UK.

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“Overnight all of that income will be gone,” he added.

“There are no other businesses in some parts of Greenland, so several towns rely heavily on either catching prawns or processing them.”

The Greenlandic government has approached Downing Street in the hope of negotiating a speedy trade agreement.

Greenland was the first country to quit the bloc in 1985.

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International Trade Secretary Liz Truss’ team are said to be in regular contact with Greenland.

A Department for International Trade spokesman said: “We are in regular contact with the Greenland government and businesses to ensure the smooth transition to these new trade arrangements.”

Greenland believes slashing red tape and tariffs will ensure Britain has a ready supply of seafood to fulfil our love for fish and chips, the nation’s favourite takeaway.

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