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Just in case a Brexit vote today marks the beginning of the end of the euro-myth, we celebrate the most inventive red herrings of all and judge just how truthful they were.
The Brexit brigade is still going on about bendy bananas and the return of imperial measures. But it is a strategy born of ignorance or – worse – panic.
Use Brexit to grow GM crops, bring back imperial measurements and scrap GDPR, taskforce urges
15/06/2021
The newly created Taskforce for Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform has identified more than 100 ‘Brexit dividends’.
Pounds and ounces could make a return to your local greengrocer and butcher under a change to EU rules after Brexit - but Labour branded it a distraction from benefit cuts.
Return of imperial system on cards for Brexit Britain – measurements have always been political
21/09/2021
Some in government would now like to see Britain’s imperial measurements make a comeback. As part of a review on EU laws still in place after Brexit, the government plans to remove a ban on selling goods using only imperial units.
French champagne makers say they have no plans to sell UK government’s Brexit pint bottles
05/02/2022
Government’s Brexit push to bring back Winston Churchill’s favourite champagne measure met with indifference.
Imperial Idiocy: Could ‘Brexit opportunities’ include turning our back on the metric system?
14/02/2022
The madness of bringing back measurements no-one understands and most of the world does not use.
Brexit Opportunities Abound – Part 2
17/02/2022
Continuing the letter to Jacob Rees-Mogg, reminding him – he seems to need reminding – of the many new opportunities created by Brexit.
Business minister mocked for ‘ludicrous’ attempt to quantify ‘Brexit benefit’.
Leaving the EU was supposed to enable innovation, not tedious headline-grabbing.
Tory peer Lord Rose criticises ‘backwards’ proposal as business department launches 12-week consultation.
Has anyone got any genuine reasons why imperial is better than metric, I asked. I got more than 2,000 replies.
Supermarket chief slams move aimed at pleasing ‘small minority who hark for the past’. / Arts minister Stephen Parkinson gave incorrect answers when Kay Burley asked him to convert ounces and grams into pounds.
Brexit Chickens Come Home to Roost
07/06/2022
While the picture’s hardly pretty and certainly not what advocates of Brexit envisioned, none of it surprises economists. As a former Bank of England official observed: “You run a trade war against yourself, bad things happen.”
Post Brexit inflation is making UK "sick man of Europe" | Economics | The New Statesman [22 mins]
18/06/2022
A "perfect storm" of Brexit, covid and poor macroeconomic fiscal policies by the Conservatives has weakened Britain's economy and diminished the UK's standing in Europe, says economist Duncan Weldon.
BVTV: Brexit fantasy ends
08/07/2022
The idea of Brexit as a force for reordering British society expired with Boris Johnson’s resignation speech, Peter Thal Larsen says.
Using imperial measurements alone is illegal in many circumstances. But the EU did not outlaw their use altogether, and the UK did take some steps towards adopting the metric system prior to joining the EU.
As Prime Minister Boris Johnson prepares to depart Downing Street, tossed from office by his own party, his legacy — the opening lines of his eventual obituary — will call him the man who “got Brexit done.” / So how is that going? What can be said about the post-Brexit Britain that Johnson is leaving behind?
Editorial: The UK’s six-year Brexit hangover
05/01/2023
There's little talk of reversing the decision, but evidence of Brexit-induced harm is piling up.
Government scraps 'Brexit dividend' plan to bring back imperial measurements in shops after almost 99% of voters say they prefer metric measures
27/12/2023
Ministers have canned plans to allow shops to sell in imperial measurements only after the public said they preferred their metres and kilograms to their pounds and feet.
The Tories have been criticised for boasting about post-Brexit freedoms that mean the UK can sell pints of wine while the economy is "on its knees" and public services "at breaking point".
The poet Robert Burns imagined a man toasting his lover with a “pint o’ wine”, and Winston Churchill was perhaps the most famous proponent of the pint bottle for champagne. Now, Rishi Sunak’s government has spied a “Brexit opportunity” to legalise the sale of wine by the pint once more – if it can persuade anyone to make the bottles.
The Brexit self-punishment machine
05/01/2024
It’s tempting to ignore the government’s announcement, made in the doldrums between Christmas and the New Year, that it is to become legal to sell wine and champagne in pint bottles.
The Metric Martyrs case – twenty years on
30/05/2022
Before Brexit, there were the Metric Martyrs. / The key legal case here was a set of appeals which were decided by the High Court in 2002, in a judgment now known as Thoburn.