Brexit: The UK without food safety border checks until 2022

On the 1st of January 2021, the UK left the European Single Market. Since then, there have been several problems concerning the goods traded from and to the UK.  

While the EU maintains its border controls with the new border checks for goods coming from the UK, Britain has found itself unprepared for the huge number of products imported from Europe and the rest of the globe. The lack of border posts, fundamental to do proper food safety checks on imported goods, forced the UK government to extend the suspension of physical sanitary and phytosanitary checks on animal products, food, and plants - that are considered highly at risk - until 1st of January 2022.  

The long delay could lead to health problems of British citizens, as Gary McFarlane, Northern Ireland director at the Chartered Institute for Environmental Health, said. He is concerned about “unscrupulous operators and individuals” that could end up selling unsafe products in the UK and consequently making huge profits out of it. Nevertheless, the 12-month period is enough to raise concerns about the unsafe trade of high-risk products like seafood and meat. As Mr. McFarlane said, “if we leave the door open at too much or too long there are risks."  

James Russell, the president of the British Veterinary Association, stated that many concerns lie in extra-European nations, given that they are not obligated to follow the production restrictions set by the EU. He declared: “Sitting outside of the EU, we don't have access to the range of the EU's disease surveillance and cooperation systems, which have been so important for us to understand things like African swine fever: where is it in the world, and how can we therefore protect our borders from that coming in? These checks are that line of defense for us now, so I think there's a note of caution there about a disease which is not currently in the United Kingdom and how we keep it out.”    

Source:  https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-checks-borders-unsafe-food-diseases-b1818080.html#comments