So, were such checks on goods entering from the UK from the EU carried out pre-Brexit, and if so have such checks been abolished as a direct result of Brexit?
Presumably too the EU countries through which such goods are conveyed en route to the UK, and indeed from which some of these goods originate in the first place, have no checks whatsoever in place - And would that apply say to meat from Poland, an EU country, destined for countries other than the UK?
Spot checks are conducted EU-wide, so pre-Brexit there was no difference between a consignment heading from say Spain to Lithuania and one heading to the UK. Retailers knew that if the health authorities in, say France, decided to conduct a random inspection and found issues they would lose their health certification and be unable to sell anywhere in the EU as a result. So there was no need for dedicated infrastructure to check every inbound consignment - we basically benefited from random spot checks conducted across all 28 member countries.
Now that the UK is a third-country, there is zero reason for EU health authorities to make any checks on consignments destined for the UK as we have chosen to go it alone as far as standards and checks are concerned. And since we have announced that we aren't conducting any checks on imports there is zero incentive for those retailers to spend the extra pennies that would be required to meet EU standards. The same, by the way, goes for safety standards and enforcement of intellectual property rights. We are, in a word, a smuggler's dream destination.
At the same time, UK exporters to the EU are at a disadvantage as we still need to meet their standards and, more importantly, have to
prove compliance as our government has refused to commit to standards alignment. This means that manufacturers need to prove compliance with both UKCA and CE standards.
