Officers trained to spot suspicious Brie face redundancy
PORTSMOUTH, England — A £23 million British border inspection facility is facing an existential crisis after government officials concluded that European cheese may not constitute the national security threat previously associated with dairy products entering the country without adequate paperwork.
The development has devastated a generation of customs officers trained to recognise suspicious Brie.
Why Britain Built a Border Control Post for Dairy
The Portsmouth border control post was built following Brexit to inspect imported animal and plant products. Proposed changes to UK-EU food trade could reduce the inspections that justified its construction, and port bosses have already warned that the site could end up commercially unviable.
The original concern was straightforward. Without British officials carefully examining continental cheese, there was a possibility that French Camembert might enter the country while remaining unmistakably French. That was considered unacceptable.
Under the established approach, a suspicious wheel of cheese could theoretically be detained until officers established its origin, destination and willingness to cooperate with British authorities. Cheddar enjoyed a natural advantage because it came from Somerset and understood the importance of behaving itself. Camembert, however, had a history of becoming increasingly runny under pressure.
A National Centre for Dairy Intelligence
One unofficial proposal for the facility's future involves transforming it into Britain's National Centre for Dairy Intelligence. Its mission would include identifying radicalised Roquefort, monitoring foreign influence on mozzarella and investigating whether Swiss cheese contains holes for legitimate agricultural reasons.
Security experts warn that Swiss cheese presents particular difficulties because investigators cannot determine whether the holes are evidence of criminal activity or merely where the evidence used to be.
Dr Philippa Strang, a food security lecturer who has studied port inspection regimes, said the difficulty is one of categories. "A cheese does not have a passport, an intention or a lawyer," she said. "That has never stopped us from treating it as though it has all three."
Where the £23 Million Went
Government accountants have a separate problem. The £23 million facility included £17 million in central government support and £6 million contributed by Portsmouth City Council, a split the council has publicly raised while seeking compensation.
That's enough money to make a dairy farmer wonder whether he should stop producing milk and start constructing buildings for people who inspect milk. Farmers traditionally make money by raising livestock, managing grassland and negotiating prices with processors who somehow always need another penny. Government infrastructure, by contrast, appears capable of generating impressive budgets without producing a single pint.
Whitehall Weighs the Future of the Site
A Whitehall management committee has suggested declaring the building environmentally sustainable because its future cheese inspections could have exceptionally low emissions. Another proposal involves opening a visitor attraction where tourists watch officials interrogate a reluctant Gouda.
Children could purchase souvenir customs forms, while parents enjoy an interactive exhibition demonstrating how to spend public money without noticeably improving the national cheese supply.
Meeting Minutes: The Committee on Whether a Committee Is Needed
Minutes of a recent departmental meeting, obtained by this publication, record a lengthy discussion under item four, "Future Use of Cheese Facility." The minutes note that the chair "welcomed everyone to the first meeting of the working group to consider whether a working group is required." Attendees agreed to reconvene once someone had located the agenda.
Action point seven reads, in full: "Cheese to be monitored." No owner is assigned. Action point eight reads: "See action point seven."
Fine Print and the Dairy Declaration Form
The fine print on the standard dairy declaration form, a copy of which was reviewed for this report, requires the importer to confirm that the cheese "is not, to the best of the declarant's knowledge, plotting anything." A footnote clarifies that this does not apply to Stilton, which "has been plotting since the nineteenth century and is considered a known quantity."
A Legal Defence for the Cheese
The broader question concerns Britain's ability to reverse expensive policies without admitting they were expensive mistakes. A reasonable person might sell the building, repurpose it or reduce operating costs. Whitehall is reportedly attracted to a fourth option, which is to establish a committee to investigate whether the building requires a committee.
The cheese, meanwhile, has retained legal counsel. Its lawyer insists the client has done nothing wrong, poses no threat to Britain and has already suffered enough by being stored at room temperature.
The government has declined to apologise. After all, nobody wants to be remembered as the minister who went soft on cheese.
Five Observations on Britain's Cheese Problem
- Customs officers trained for years to spot suspicious Brie. How do you spot it? It's the one that looks at you like it knows something. That's every Brie. That's why you eat it with crackers, to shut it up.
- Swiss cheese has holes, and nobody asks why. If a man in a coat had holes in him, there'd be an inquiry. The cheese just gets sliced and put on a sandwich.
- They want to turn it into a visitor attraction where tourists watch officials interrogate a Gouda. And honestly? I've paid money for worse. I once watched a man in a Premier Inn explain a sandwich to a waiter.
- The committee to decide if they need a committee. That's the most British thing I've ever heard. It's like a queue for a queue. And somebody's already complaining about the other queue.
- The cheese hired a lawyer. Smart. Everybody else in this story is spending public money on a building. The cheese is spending its own money on a defence. That's the only adult in the room, and it's got a rind. https://prat.uk/?p=54973
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