Plans to delay border checks on goods imported from the EU for a fourth time have been slammed as a 'global disgrace' by the Farmers' Union of Wales (FUW).
The union said the move would extend concessions for foreign businesses that "may as well be deliberately aimed at undermining UK farmers and producers."
Checks on imports from the EU should originally have been introduced in January 2021 when the Brexit transition period came to an end.
But the failure of the UK government to prepare border inspection posts meant they were not implemented at that time and have been delayed three times in the subsequent 28 months.
Meanwhile, EU countries started implementing full checks on exports from the UK on 1 January 2021.
Speaking in response to the news that Prime Minister Boris Johnson was considering a fourth delay, FUW President Glyn Roberts said it was a 'global disgrace' and a 'national embarrassment'.
"It means we are failing to implement checks on international trade that should be standard practice in order to protect our own industries and population.”
Mr Roberts said UK exporters faced significant and costly checks on goods moving to the EU, but that EU products had been waived through ports and into the UK market without checks for more than a year.
“In other words, our exports, such as Welsh lamb, face extremely costly border bureaucracy while food producers importing from the EU to the UK face nothing of the sort.
"The government’s failure to prepare for their own Brexit plan may as well be deliberately aimed at undermining UK farmers and producers,” said Mr Roberts.
UK food and drink exports in 2021 were 12% below 2020 levels and 16% below 2019 levels, with falls for certain food products such as lamb far greater, mainly as a result of the checks imposed on UK exports entering the EU and associated costs.
In its June 2021 response to a government consultation on further delaying checks at UK borders, the FUW stated: "Border checks are inherent to the UK government’s decision to leave the Single Market and Customs Union announced by Theresa May in January 2017.
"Concerns regarding governments’ failures to prepare for these over the subsequent three years have been highlighted repeatedly by the FUW and in four reports by the National Audit Office."
By contrast, neighbouring EU countries have instigated more thorough preparations, allowing them to implement full border checks when the transition period ended on 31 December 2020.
Mr Roberts said that during the period of almost a year since that consultation was launched, the failures had simply continued to the extent that a fourth delay was being mooted by Mr Johnson.
“It is highly embarrassing and a disgrace that while other countries were able to prepare for and implement plans for a Brexit they didn’t want over just a couple of years, those who instigated Brexit have failed over a period of more than five years to implement an essential feature of what they wanted.”
