The government’s preparations for a no-deal Brexit have been questioned after it emerged a £13.8m contract to run extra ferries has been awarded to a company with no ships.

Seaborne Freight, which has not previously operated a ferry service, was one of three firms tasked with laying on additional crossings to ease the pressure on Dover.

It aims to operate freight ferries from Ramsgate in Kent to Ostend in Belgium, beginning with two ships in late March and increasing to four by the end of the summer.

But a Conservative county councillor for Ramsgate said he did not believe it would be possible to set up a new service from the port by the scheduled date of Brexit on 29 March.

Paul Messenger also questioned whether the government had carried out sufficient checks on the firm, telling the BBC: “It has no ships and no trading history so how can due diligence be done?

“Why choose a company that never moved a single truck in their entire history and give them £14m? I don’t understand the logic of that.”

Seaborne said in a statement it had been working since 2017 on plans to reintroduce ferry sailings from Ramsgate from early 2019 and has been “financed by the shareholders” during a development phase.

The company said this had involved ”locating suitable vessels, making arrangements with the ports of Ostend and Ramsgate, building the infrastructure – such as bunkering – as well as crewing the ferries once they start operating”.

It added: “It was intended to start the service in mid-February but this has now been delayed until late March for operational reasons.

“This coincides with the Department for Transport’s (DfT) freight capacity purchase agreement with Seaborne which is part of their preparations to increase ferry capacity in the unlikely event of a no-deal Brexit.”

The firm was founded by industry veterans, its chief executive Ben Sharp told the BBC.

Ramsgate has not had a cross-Channel service since 2013, when operators TransEuropa collapsed.

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Sir Ed Davey said: “That the government has reportedly signed a contract with a ferry company with no ferries pretty much sums up their farcical approach to the entire Brexit fiasco.

“The government could, and should, take the threat of a no-deal Brexit off the table. It is being used only to try and scaremonger people into backing their deal. It is now costing the country millions – it is inexcusable and people won’t be fooled.

“People must be given the final say on the Brexit deal with a people’s vote where they have the right to choose to remain.”

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Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi, a supporter of the Best for Britain campaign for a second referendum, said: “Never has it been clearer that our government is selling us down the river over Brexit.

“A firm that has never run a ferry service before has been awarded a multi-million pound contract and they don’t even have any ships.

“We know our ports aren’t ready for a no-deal disaster, but is hiring a firm that’s never dealt with this kind of thing before really going to help? This idea should have been sunk before it saw the light of day.”

A DfT spokesman added: “This contract was awarded in the full knowledge that Seaborne Freight is a new shipping provider, and that the extra capacity and vessels would be provided as part of its first services.

“As with all contracts, we carefully vetted the company’s commercial, technical and financial position in detail before making the award.”

Britain before Brexit: Southeast England Show all 14 1 /14 Britain before Brexit: Southeast England Britain before Brexit: Southeast England Ryde, Isle of Wight A fisherman digs for bait by the reflections of Britain’s second-longest seaside pier. The pier dwarfs his work – its construction looms over him – yet its shape also points to his significance in the frame, leading the eye back to him by the arc at its furthest point Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain before Brexit: Southeast England Brighton The smoking area of a seafront night club, not yet swept by Monday mid-morning, tells a story about the weekend’s nightlife. And the story is Cinderella, a 21st-century British adaptation: a lost high-heel surrounded by cigarette butts, left behind in a hurry, before the magic of the night ebbed away Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain before Brexit: Southeast England Dover To sit on this bench means to become part of a picture of different histories coalescing: a collage of war in the 1910s, 1940s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s. To sit here means to insert yourself within Dover’s sense of identity as Britain’s first line of defence, to feature on the final frontier of the nation Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain before Brexit: Southeast England Brighton American beauty pageant contestants photograph each other on the beach. Their glossy, colourful appearances accentuate West Pier’s drab nakedness behind, a charred skeleton left out to sea, a monument to the 2003 fire Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain before Brexit: Southeast England Portsmouth Flags flown for the summer’s World Cup not yet taken down in autumn. Evergreen patriotism. Attached front and back, the flags say hello and bid farewell Englishly; the country is the vehicle’s beginning and end as it roams through the Landport council estate Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain before Brexit: Southeast England Dover Homophobic scribbles are challenged and transformed into proud homosexual scribbles. Even boarded-up shop fronts can become contested sites of identification, where people publicly frame and re-frame social norms and values Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain before Brexit: Southeast England Brighton An image of a baby, cradled by loving hands, looked after, healthy, pure in white, angelic even, held aloft and presented to the street – to society – above a makeshift bed and its sleeping occupants, fully grown, uncared for, leaning on each other, with last night’s bottle half empty, not quite done Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain before Brexit: Southeast England Ryde, Isle of Wight It seemed like a sinister play on words (the island’s name is pronounced the same as the colour): a term borrowed from America, from a specific racial and economic context, and now used as a pun in Britain’s own deep south Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain before Brexit: Southeast England Margate Lovers embrace and drink beer from a micro pub on the harbour arm, awaiting the sunset, moving into each other and becoming unified against a backdrop of the town’s seafront Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain before Brexit: Southeast England Margate Four headstones bearing various extracts of nostalgic, twee Britishness stand near the train station and look over the bay. One has been defaced by a less traditional, though no less typical, British attack Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain before Brexit: Southeast England Portsmouth A man looks for cigarette butts from a bin on Commercial Road, not quite the ‘Gold Zone’ it proclaims to be. A teddy bear slumps across his load. He tells me that the cuddly toy is his pillow. I imagine him taking it to bed, not to cuddle beneath the covers, but to use as a buffer, a protective layer between his body and cold concrete Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain before Brexit: Southeast England Brighton The neat repetition of vivid colours and the clear leading lines in this photograph contrast with the instability and blurred boundaries of its political content. Brighton is known for its green politics, but for some that’s not enough: one must go further than being conscious of the environment, and live in a way that sees all species as equal Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain before Brexit: Southeast England Margate Since residents began displaying political messages in their windows, making the private realm public, this high-rise has become a local attraction. The full sign reads ‘BLOCK BREXIT’. But I wanted to show it from a different angle and gain another perspective, to alter its meaning, to treat reality as something unfixed and malleable Richard Morgan/The Independent Britain before Brexit: Southeast England Portsmouth The nickname is misspelt, but Pompey is alive and smiling, up and about like the stranger who had rested on the bench by the sea. Only the sleeping bag is left as a sign of what might have been Richard Morgan/The Independent

The DfT has also signed a £47.3m contract with Danish company DFDS and a £46.6m contract with French firm Brittany Ferries to increase capacity on their routes.

Ministers have been accused of “recklessly” spending public money on last-minute preparations for a disorderly Brexit, which will be the default scenario if MPs cannot reach an agreement.

Details of the deals were published quietly on Christmas Eve and reveal that Whitehall officials warned that a “situation of extreme urgency” exists in “roll-on roll-off” ferry capacity if the UK leaves the EU without a deal.