The first week of the United Kingdom's new era outside the European Union has unleashed a perfect storm of layers of bureacracy and administrative problems, resulting in queues, border refusals and utter confusion for Scottish seafood exporters, trade group Seafood Scotland said on Thursday.

The industry was already weakened by the COVID-19 crisis, and the closure of the French border before Christmas.

IT problems in France meant consignments were diverted from Boulogne sur Mer to Dunkirk, which was unprepared as it wasn’t meant to be at the export frontline.