Bridlington seafood lorries protest in London against post-Brexit export delays crippling the industry

Around 25 trucks including Venture Seafoods, with slogans including "incompetent government destroying shellfish industry", drove round Parliament Square and the nearby area for several hours on Monday morning.

Exports of live shellfish have been halted since last Wednesday because of the "unworkable" delays facing trucks.

It took one Welsh haulier five days to get to Boulogne, while another carrying a consignment for 10 customers needed 400 pieces of paper.

Gary Hodgson, director of Venture Seafoods, said: "Many fishing communities did vote to leave but I don’t think anyone who did anticipated being constrained by documentation and restrictions that have now been thrust upon us."

Bridlington is Europe's lobster capital, and the majority of the shellfish landed in the port ends up gracing the tables of restaurants and hotels in France, Spain, Portugal and Italy.

The 310-tonnes landed in 2019 into the port represents 17.5 per cent of the European lobsters landed into England and 9.5 per cent of the global landings for the shellfish.

Mr Hodgson said the Government needed to fully appreciate the severity of the problems facing seafood exporters.

He is not sending any trucks to the Continent at the moment because of the difficulties.

He said: "We strongly feel the system could potentially collapse. We need the Prime Minister to be honest with us and the British public about the problems the seafood industry is facing.

"At the moment it's early days - it's only 18 days since we left - but there are big parts of the industry that are stopped at the moment.

"Some areas don't have access to processing companies like they do in Bridlington and this problem is only going to get worse.

"The system is unworkable and basically all the businesses after that first week just had to stop and take stock of the situation.

"There were lorries stuck up for 30 hours and lorries travelling with 400 pieces of paperwork and office staff working 20 hour days trying to submit customs declarations, none of this is workable."

On Sunday Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab claimed the delays were just “teething problems”, adding: “I’m not convinced that that is the result of the agreement.”

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer accused the Government of trying to blame fishing communities for the issues caused by Brexit “rather than accepting it’s their failure to prepare”.

Boris Johnson said a £23 million compensation fund was in place to help those which had a genuine buyer for their fish on the continent.

The Prime Minister said: “Where businesses - through no fault of their own - have experienced bureaucratic delays, difficulties, getting their goods through where there is a genuine, willing buyer on the other side of the Channel and they have had a problem, then there is a £23 million compensation fund that we have set up and they will get help