//Please specify the "silly rules" that the UK have to follow.//
Here’s an example then: sending a shipment of meat from the UK to the continent involves a 26-stage process. Certifying officers – typically vets – need to check each consignment before departure. Traders need to input details into at least five databases, while obtaining multiple certificates, reference numbers, documents and permits. And all this to receive meat from a country that until eight months ago, was subject to all the same standards EU members were (and which actually complied with them to a far greater degree than many did). You can look up this process if you want to.
The reason the EU behaves like this is not because it is particularly concerned about the standards of the goods it imports. It could easily devise a simpler method for “trusted trader nations” if it wished. Australia and New Zealand (for example) operate just such a programme where individual countries undergo an initial assessment when they apply for permission to export meat to those countries. Once they have passed that assessment the export of meat is straightforward. Regular reassessments are undertaken to ensure the standards are being maintained. The EU refuses to do this because it is a protectionist organisation. It wants to protect its member nations from competition so makes it as difficult as it can for outsiders to compete. It will take time to wean UK businesses away from dealing with the EU but wean themselves away from it they must. Then French and German consumers can have their meat freely shipped in from Romania or Bulgaria where I’m sure the sanitary and health standards are far higher than they are here in the now renegade and lawless UK.