I am confused.
A retailer within the EU selling to a consumer outside the EU is not obliged to add EU-VAT.
Thus who can nonetheless charge this plus a punishment fee from the seller and and on what legal basis?
Adding UK tax on such sale to the UK and transferring such to UK fiscal authorities is a service for UK consumers to enable them such import.
How can not doing so affect the EU retailer and not the importing UK-consumer?
I don´t really know. I guess the situation will be that inside the UK the debt will acumulate and be valid under UK law but it is a question if this will be helped to collect by EU member states.
So you might get away with it by not entering the UK but such schemes are not an option for us. We want to do things in compliance with the respective laws and if they are incompliable, I guess we have to cease this part of the business.