Why businesses need to keep a closer eye on imports in light of Brexit 

Two-and-a-half years ago, the British public was told that the EU Withdrawal Agreement was an “oven-ready deal”. Barriers to trade, which had been a bogeyman for those who opposed Brexit, would not be an issue. Industry could continue as normal without any supply chain disruption.

Today, that oven-ready deal looks underdone. For all intents and purposes – and despite all the furore over checks on goods passing into the single market – the EU seems to have largely stopped carrying out inspections on goods going in the opposite direction, into Great Britain. The latest negotiations about Northern Irish trade, culminating in the Windsor Framework, have dominated Whitehall’s thinking, leaving supply chain standards more generally to wither on the vine. 

“Northern Ireland at the moment is a constantly changing environment, with little beyond agreements in principle on data sharing,” says Andrew Thurston, customs duty consultant at accountancy firm MHA. The constant changes mean that nothing is nailed down or absolute. “At the moment, there is the risk that labelling might be wrong and [importers] might not be meeting the right standards,” he explains.