Well, that is how a large number of companies that sell basses here work (certainly bax, dv247 etc), they are european companies with a british branch. It wasn't a problem as you could just ship them quickly. I am sure all of those places aren't hiding anything from you, its just what they do as until the end of the year, we can buy things from whereever without additional problems.
Obviously post brexit we will solve that, its no longer going to be viable to get stuff shipped!