CRISIS talks have been held on either side of the English Channel as the UK was cut off from the continent with fears rising about the more infectious strain of the coronavirus.

Boris Johnson was chairing a meeting of Whitehall’s emergency Cobra committee with the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish administrations in attendance ahead of a Downing St press conference later.

In Brussels, an EU crisis response committee met but did not issue a statement on common guidelines about how member states should deal with the Covidf-19 variant.

Among countries imposing travel restrictions on passengers from the UK are France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Denmark, El Salvador, Turkey, Canada and Hong Kong.

They have reacted after the Prime Minister at the weekend said the new variant was up to 70 per cent more transmissible than the original strain while Matt Hancock, England’s Health Secretary, admitted the mutant starin was “out of control” and the Tier 4 lockdown south of the border might have to remain in place for months.

Stephen Evans, Professor of Pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said vaccination alone would not be enough to bring the virus circulating in the community to “very low levels,” so that restrictions would “need to be carried on”.

Jean-Baptiste Djebarri, the French transport minister, said he hoped a health protocol would be agreed by EU member states “to ensure that movement from the UK can resume” after his country slapped a 48-hour ban on passengers and freight crossing the Channel.

The closure of cross-channel routes until at least Wednesday has alarmed businesses in the lead-up to Christmas and with the added complication of the end of the Brexit transition period on December 31.

Half of all goods traded between the UK and the EU and around 90 per cent of all truck traffic crosses the channel via Dover Strait.

Sainsbury’s warned that disruption could hit supplies of lettuce, some salad leaves, cauliflowers, broccoli and citrus fruit, all of which are imported from the continent at this time of year.

Mr Djebarri said there would be a “solid health protocol” to “protect our nationals and our fellow citizens” while allowing movement to resume.

Measures being considered in France include the possibility of testing the country’s nationals to allow them to return from the UK.

Nicola Sturgeon welcomed the move towards a health protocol but, noting how it was not known exactly when it would take effect, called on the UK Government to take further action.

The First Minister told the Scottish Government’s coronavirus briefing: “In particular, the UK has planned for port disruption as part of a no-deal Brexit and those plans should now be activated.”

Ms Sturgeon said the Scottish Government was working with Whitehall to mitigate the impact with both holding resilience meetings.

Grant Shapps, the UK Government’s Transport Secretary, said emergency measures were being put in place to cope with a backlog of lorries heading for the Channel ports.

However, he sought to play down the potential impact, stressing that container freight was not hit by the ban on people crossing the border and hauliers were “quite used to anticipating disruption”.

The disused Manston Airport in Kent would be used as a lorry park, while Operation Stack, the contingency measures used to queue on the M20 whenever there is disruption at the channel, was already in place.

Mr Shapps also dismissed concerns about the impact of the travel ban on supplies of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, which is manufactured in Belgium, insisting how container freight was unaffected. No 10 pointed out how most of the vaccine supply was already in the UK.

Richard Burnett, Chief Executive of the Road Haulage Association, said the disruption could cause problems with “fresh food supply” in the run-up to Christmas.

“With it being so close to Christmas we’re looking at 48 hours at this point in time in terms of the restrictions, we’re likely to see Operation Stack building in terms of numbers of vehicles on the UK side and that might be a deterrent for EU hauliers to want to come so close to Christmas and end up being stranded here, that’s part of the challenge that we’re facing today.”

Food export firms in Scotland warned the border ban was a “disaster”.

James Withers, Chief Executive of Scotland Food & Drink, insisted urgent action was needed to protect “perishable products worth millions”.

He explained: “We need the ban on freight moving across the English Channel lifted in the next 24 hours so products can start moving by Tuesday morning at the latest.

“We have heard from companies with dozens of lorries now stuck, having travelled overnight to Dover or the Eurotunnel which are now shut to incoming traffic.

“They are carrying perishable products worth millions and the clock is ticking for that product to survive these delays.

“We estimate there will be over £5 million of Scottish food that would be been heading into France daily this week,” he added.

Doug Bannister, the Port of Dover Chief Executive, warned that a prolonged period of disruption would be a “stark situation”.

He said: “Because of the importance of the Dover straits in handling critical goods such as food and other things like that it could become quite dramatic.”

Dover MP Natalie Elphicke condemned the French decision to halt travel and urged Emmanuel Macron’s Government to reopen the border.

“The French Government’s decision to close the border at no notice was unnecessary, unhelpful and irresponsible,” declared the backbencher.

“It has caused serious traffic congestion at a time when traffic flows were already high, with Christmas and over-stocking causing congestion at a number of ports ahead of the end of the transition period.

“The longer that this goes on, the longer it will take to unwind, meaning that there could be queues past Christmas unless the French reopen the border soon,” added Ms Elphicke.

Meanwhile, Mr Johnson faced demands to recall the UK Parliament to address the crisis, which follows the introduction of a new Tier 4 level of lockdown on London and large parts of south-east England.

Concerns about the spread of the new variant also led to the dramatic scaling back of Christmas plans, with mixing banned in Tier 4 and the three-household provision being allowed for just Christmas Day itself in the rest of England.

In other developments:

*more than 30 countries have banned UK arrivals because of concerns over the spread of a new Covid-19 variant with Spain, India, Hong Kong, Canada, Switzerland and Germany the latest to suspend UK flights;

*cases of the new variant have been reported in Iceland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Gibraltar and Australia;

*official figures indicated Wales has had more than 600 cases of the new coronavirus but this is “almost certainly a significant underestimation”, Mark Drakeford, the First Minister, noted:

*experts warned social distancing measures would have to remain in place until around 50% of the population had been vaccinated, a process which could take months and

*SAGE expert Professor Calum Semple said the new Covid-19 variant was likely to become the dominant global strain of Covid-19;

*the European Medicines Agency has recommended use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, paving the way for vaccinations to start in the EU within days.

The U-turn over Christmas plans and the imposition of the Tier 4 lockdown on almost a third of England’s population has led to pressure on Mr Johnson from his own benches.

Conservative former minister Sir Desmond Swayne questioned the timing of the Government’s announcements.

“They’ve been looking at it since September, and how convenient when Parliament went into recess on Thursday, suddenly they were then able to produce this revelation,” he told the BBC.

“Let’s see the evidence then, let’s have Parliament back and show us and convince us – come clean,” added the Hampshire MP.

In a separate development, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Commons Leader, said the Government would seek to extend remote participation in Commons proceedings as a result of the Tier 4 restrictions in London.

The Somerset MP has written to the Commons Procedure Select Committee outlining the Government’s plans to reduce the number of MPs who would need to travel to Westminster to take part in debates.

In the letter, he said the current arrangements which allowed MPs to virtually participate in questioning ministers would be extended to debates on legislation and would not involve any restrictive “eligibility criteria”.