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Fur sales face post-Brexit ban under ministers' proposals

The Queen's guard wear bearskin hats - Getty
The Queen's guard wear bearskin hats - Getty

Fur sales will be banned after Britain's departure from the EU single market and customs union under plans being drawn up by ministers, it was reported on Thursday night.

The move is being spearheaded by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park, minister at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who is a close friend of Boris Johnson and his fiancée Carrie Symonds, an animal rights campaigner.

Last year, Ms Symonds described anyone who wished to buy fur as "really sick" and that clothes brands were "nuts" to sell it.

The Government is considering marking its departure from the EU by introducing rules which would ban the sale of clothes containing fur, according to The Times. Lord Goldsmith argued that Brexit meant "whatever barriers may have prevented us from raising standards on imports at the point of entry will have gone".

Leaked Defra documents seen by The Daily Telegraph showed Lord Goldsmith met with the executive director of anti-fur organisation, Humane Society International, on May 12 in which he asked if there were any particular areas, in relation to the fur trade, that the Government should research.

Fur farming was banned in 2003 but the UK still allows the product to be imported from overseas and France is one of the biggest suppliers. The British fur trade association will lobby against the reported ban which it described as "irrational, illiberal and misjudged".