Pretty sure the UK has never done exit controls. I remember being surprised at being asked for my passport at the border post the first time I flew out of Schengen since officials don’t check your passport flying out of the UK.

I have travelled to the continent several times on the Eurostar and each time I got my passport checked twice in St Pancras Station in London, within a few metres of each other. Once by UK authorities and then by French authorities.

And I have walked past the unmanned UK booths to the French one several times, but anecdotes are pretty useless in these discussions.

We're not debating statistical trends here, so blanket dismissals of "anecdotes" are themselves pretty useless. I was sharing my experience. Maybe you happened to be passing by while they were on their tea break, I don't know. I'm going again in a few weeks so will be interested to see if both booths are still functioning.

The UK introduced exit checks in 8 April 2015. My anecdote is from travel before then, yours after.

Discussion-by-anecdote is pointless without dates etc, and a waste of time when it's easy enough to find the policy: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/exit-checks-on-pa...