Brexit minister: UK 'very concerned' over kosher food threat to N. Ireland

Exclusive: Lord David Frost tells the Jewish News: 'We are very aware of that problem, we are very concerned about it, and we will get it sorted'

Lord David Frost has told Jewish News the government is “very concerned” about the continued problem in getting kosher food to Northern Ireland’s Jewish community as a result of a row with the European Union over the Brexit Protocol.

Speaking after Boris Johnson had name-checked him in his Leaders Speech at the Tory Conference, the Brexit Minister confirmed the government’s was “doing everything we can” to resolve the problem that has mainly affected the community living in Belfast.

“Obviously we are concerned about that – and we will do everything we can to make sure that kosher food and everything else can be supplied into Northern Ireland in the future as it has been in the past, ” said Lord Frost, the government’s chief negotiator.

“We are very aware of that problem, we are very concerned about it, and we will get it sorted.”

In July, the Board of Deputies President Marie van der Zyl and Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis met with Belfast Jewish community chairman Michael Black and local religious leader Reverend David Kale “to urge the Government to take action to avoid the Northern Ireland Protocol potentially ending Jewish life in Belfast

The protocol row effects the part of the Brexit deal that creates a border in the Irish Sea.

Earlier this week Lord Frost threatened to invoke Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Brexit agreement, which would suspend key parts of the Brexit treaty and could see a hard border emerge.