Instead of the "complete reappraisal of metrication policy" promised by the Minister for Competition and Consumer Affairs two years ago, it is merely an account of the DTI's implementation of the EC Directives enforcing compulsory metrication. Its sole purpose was to stifle opposition pending final instructions from Brussels and to give minimum notice prior to 31 December, after which it will be a criminal offence for anything sold by size or weight to be measured and priced in customary measures.
Even the Report's title is misleading: "The adoption of the International System of units ss the primary system of measurement in the UK" should read "THE IMPOSITION OF THE METRIC SYSTEM AS THE SOLE SYSTEM... " The planned metric monopoly is being imposed by stealth.
The confusion caused by this delay and secrecy is worsened by the impression that imperial units had won a ten-year reprieve, created by government announcements that permission for their use as "supplementary indicators" (alongside but subordinate to metric) had been extended until 2009, but any such use is optional at the discretion of the supplier while metric is obligatory.
Besides, such use is impractical for fresh foods and other loose goods. The EC has always allowed their sale in non-metric (pounds and ounces) but that concession expires on 31 December because THE DTI HAS NOT BOTHERED TO OBTAIN SIMILAR TEN-YEAR EXTENSION. This is inexcusable, for it concerns purely domestic trade with no bearing on a single European market.
Even more confusion has been created by the pretence that the ten-year extension for use of "supplementary indications" was granted for the UK's benefit whereas it was solely to meet the needs of exporters from EU countries to the USA where 'dual marking' is mandatory. The DTI's blurring of UK 'supplementary indications' and US 'dual marking' is disgraceful.
In any event, since (a) it is of no concern to government whether or not imperial units are used as "supplementary indications" and (b) such use is no more than provision of additional information, PERMISSION HAS NEVER BEEN REQUIRED FOR USE OF IMPERIAL AS "SUPPLEMENTARY INDICATIONS" AND THE EC'S PRETENCE THAT IT CAN GRANT OR WITHHOLD SUCH PERMISSION IS A CONFIDENCE TRICK THAT MUST BE EXPOSED AND CHALLENGED.
Natural justice is based on proscriptive law, whereby any activity is presumed legal unless expressly forbidden (as one is presumed innocent unless proved guilty), but these regulations are based on prescriptive law, whereby any use of measurement not specifically authorized or exempted is illegal. So a particular use may be a criminal offence merely because it has been omitted from the Annex to the Directive. THIS IS A CONSTITUTIONAL ABOMINATION. It is also unworkable, because of the host of colloquial, tertiary and proprietary references to quantity which may, or may not, be legal.
Compulsory metrication has not featured in any political party's General Election manifesto. The people have never been consulted. Four Prime Ministers (Wilson, Heath, Callaghan, Thatcher) all promised that metrication would be a voluntary process. It has nothing to do with trade or the economy always having been driven by the Foreign Office in order to satisfy the EC.
Britain's codes of anti-fraud and consumer protection legislation can amply control use of weights and measures, as in European countries. Compliance with these unworkable regulations should await their thorough testing in a court of law. This vital part of our culture cannot be criminalized.
To attract as little attention as possible, it was on the quietest day in the parliamentary year - Friday 23 July, the eve of the last week-end before the House of Commons rose for the summer recess - that Dr Kim Howells, the Junior Minister at the Department for Trade and Industty responsible for Consumer Affairs and Competition Policy, presented a written reply to a back-bencher's planted question, announcing that he had "today placed in the Library of the House a report by my Department on the adoption of the International System of Units - the modern version of the metric system." This was the outcome of the "complete reappraisal of metrication policy" launched two years earlier by Dr Howells' predecessor, Nigel Griffiths. Although the DTI had promised that the report would be out before summer '98, then before last Christmas and then before last Easter, and although it impacts on the daily lives of the entire population, no press release accompanied its eventual publication. The media were left in the dark while the politicians left on their hols.
2 Yet this was only five months before the deadline of 31 December, after which it is now revealed - everything and anything sold by size or by weight must be measured and priced in metric units. Such a ludicrously short period of notice is inadequate for all the necessary preparations by traders and for public familiarisation. But maximum delay and secrecy had been vital to the government mattering more than the interests of the domestic economy - because public knowledge of the brutal truth concerning metric regimentation would have caused an outcry which, if time had still been available, might have compelled a renegotiation with the EC. With the summer recess ahead, however, followed by only four months before the metric monopoly comes into force, potential opposition was stifled.
3 BWMA, along with many other interested bodies, has been deceived and considers that the public interest has been betrayed. Opposition to compulsory metrication was acutely frustrated by this prolonged anticipation of the DTl's "complete reappraisal" and lulled by the informal assurances continually given as to its likely substance. Now we find that there are no relaxations, no concessions; none was ever intended. The report is not a "complete reappraisal"; nor even a policy review. It is merely an account of the DTI's implementation of the EC Directives. There would be no difference if it had never appeared, for its sole purpose had been to mute and beguile potential opposition during that two-year period; to enable Westminster to keep us at arm's length while awaiting final instructions from Brussels. Those informal assurances, and our detailed consultations - conducted, we had supposed, in good faith - were all worthless. Nevertheless, delay and secrecy are still not enough. Continuing confusion and misrepresentation of the report's contents are necessary, too; because, even at this late hour, traders, consumers and the media may yet raise a storm of protest if they realize what is in store.
4 Five months earlier, last February, when Commissioner Martin Bangemann (shortly before his disgrace and resignation) grudgingly announced the ten-year extension of the derogation permitting metric-imperial 'dual marking' for the benefit of trade by exporters from EU countries to the USA, the news was hailed in Britain as a reprieve for the use of customary units generally. The DTI did nothing to dispel this impression, for it helped still further to suppress opposition to the metrication policy. The media and general public were unaware that: (i) Bangemann had resisted to the last possible moment any further postponement of metric-only labelling, arguing that the USA, the global super-power, with the world's most successful economy, had already had since 1975 to emulate Europe by going metric, so scarcely deserved another decade within which to mend its ways, (ii) the UK situation had no bearing on the granting of this extension, and (iii) a decision was still awaited from Brussels on the fate of the other derogation which has always permitted continued use of non-metric units, i.e. imperial only, for the sale of fresh foods and other loose goods - would that likewise be extended until 31 December 2009 or allowed to expire this year? Nobody seemed to care about the first two or know the answer to the third. Indeed, hardly anybody realized that there existed this other, collateral derogation, which was actually of far greater concern to the daily lives of the population. Neither the media nor the DTI wanted to spoil the story of another triumph for our Ministers in securing a renewal of life for the British system. It served largely (outside the BWMA campaign) to keep the country quiet until the 'report' could be released.
5 To pull such a trick once was clever; to repeat it showed exceptional long-term planning! Yet, even after it transpires that the second derogation will lapse shortly, making it a criminal offence to sell fresh foods and other loose goods by customary measures, the Department of Trade and Spindustry contrives to proclaim this as another successful outcome for the trader and consumer. The reason why this separate, express derogation had been granted in 1975 and renewed in 1989 was precisely because the EC recognized that it is impractical to use dual unit-pricing on fresh foods, etc. They have always been sold in pounds and ounces. A greengrocer may have five different varieties of tomato in his shop (e.g. vine, beef, organic, Cyprus and Guernsey), the price of each changing daily according to the weather and market conditions, with limited space on the tickets for displaying the price prominently - again, imagine a stall-holder in a market hall with a couple of dozen varieties of cheese, or a street-trader with his felt-tip pen in the wind and rain - so dual unit-pricing in this sector is unrealistic. Yet the Minister rejoices that the EC has graciously consented to permit retailers of goods sold "loose from bulk and weighed at the point of sale" to do what they have never done and what has always been impractical. If it were practical, the EC would not have provided this special dispensation 24 years ago.
6 Following the announcement in February of a ten-year extension for use of customary units as 'supplementary indications' at the behest of EU exporters to the USA, expectations had been high that the same would apply to this twin derogation After all, it applies solely to domestic trade - overwhelmingly small retailers - with no bearing on a 'Single European Market'- Besides, the USA is not a member of the EU whereas the UK is. Consequently, the expiry of this derogation is a devastating blow to the private food-retailing industry and to the mass of consumers. For the Minister to turn it into a matter of self-congratulation is unspeakable.
7 Worst of all is the fact that our government did not even ask for an extension. Written answers from the Minister to an MP's parliamentary questions state:
(a) "The Government has not discussed the derogation for goods sold loose with Members of the European Commission."
(b) "The Government has not made any representations to the European Commission to extend the derogation in Directive 80/181/EEC on units of measurement, under which the ounce and the pound may be used until 31 December 1999 as the legal units in the UK for goods sold loose and weighed at the point of sale."
8 Had the Government made a forceful attempt to secure a parallel extension, it could not have failed. It might even have been 'pushing at an open door'. But it did not bother; such is its contempt for small businesses and for consumer interests. Perhaps there was pressure from the Foreign Office on the DTI not to risk irritating Brussels. The DTI is notoriously obliged to trail after the FO with a bucket and shovel, clearing up the messes it leaves behind. But although there are a lot of 'old fruits' in the FO, selling fresh foods is hardly within its sphere of influence. There is no excuse for this surrender.
9 But the government had already capitulated much earlier. The 'Explanatory Memorandum' accompanying the Draft Directive (further amending Directive 80/18 I/EEC) stated that: "a uniform world-wide system of measurement can only be achieved if the USA follows the rest of the world and adopts the international system. It is the only western industrialised country that does not use the international system..." If so, then either (a) Britain is no longer an industrialised country or (b) we already do use the 'international system', in which case why do we need this new legislation? Which is it? Also: "the US are the only indus1rialised nation in the world not using the SI..."; in which case, again, why these further Directives~ if Britain is already using the Sl system? Otherwise, if we are not, then that statement is false- Answers to these questions are unobtainable from the DTI. In any event, nobody representing Britain ever troubled to clarify this Memorandum Perhaps the EC saw no point in consulting us on it, or on the Draft Directive, for it would have made no difference if they had.
10 So much by way of a preamble: now to the Minister's statement and the report itself. The very title - "The adoption of the International System of units as the primary system of measurement in the United Kingdom" - contains three distortions. (a) The bland term "adoption" implies a voluntary process, whereas in fact it is an imposition - a compulsory process enforced by criminal penalties. (b) 'International System" here means Le Systeme International which is only one of three metric systems. (One of the few accurate expressions in the Minister's statement is his reference to "the modern version"; for the metric system is littered with archaic and obsolescent units, conferences having to be held at intervals to bring it up to date and try, unsuccessfully, to harmonize national variations.) Besides, the imperial system is as much an international system as metric. (c) "primary" is misleading, implying a secondary alternative, but there is no alternative to the use of metric. The title should therefore read: 'The imposition of the Sl system as the sole system of measurement. .. '
11 This brings us directly to the confidence trick that is the key to the whole metrication process, in a passage from the Minister's introductory statement: "I am pleased to be able to announce that in response to representations from the Government and others, the European Commission has proposed that non-metric units may be used alongside metric units until 31 December 2009, pending completion of the US metrication programme. This will enable UK manufacturers and retailers, who wish to do so, to dual mark quantity and price per imperial unit alongside the price per metric unit." This is a mendacious mish-mash. The EC was uninfluenced by any representations from the UK government and the USA has no "metrication programme". The DTI is frequently asked for documentary evidence of this 'programme", which they cannot supply because it does not exist. Elsewhere in his statement the Minister claims that "Metrication is now under way in the United States." That is a more modest pretence than the stock expression included in all the standard letters churned out by the DTI in 1995-7, that "The US has recently accelerated its own metrication programme": they have been obliged to abandon that fantasy, at least. It would be truer to say that 'Metrication is now under way in the US - in reverse gear'! For the half-hearted ventures into metrication (e.g. for new highway projects) are rapidly being discarded. They are reverting to 'English' units. President Clinton has made it clear that no more tax dollars are going to be wasted on metrication. The DTI must know this, of course. (The reciprocal lie told by many American school-teachers, and even printed in some Federal literature, is that Britain went completely metric in 1972!)
12 Furthermore, the Minister's announcement fails to distinguish between the two derogations, lumping them together as if the extension of dual marking for the benefit of EU exporters to the USA equally satisfied the needs of fresh-food retailers at home, which really is nonsense. The whole point of the ten-year extension for the first derogation is that it had to be granted because dual marking of pre-packaged goods is mandatory in the USA, whereas its application here is entirely optional, at the discretion of the supplier or retailer. For the DTI to confuse a mandatory use in the USA with a discretionary use in Britain is appalling. To do so wilfully, in seeking to justify its case, is quite disgraceful.
13 Fresh foods, etc, throughout the USA are sold almost exclusively in pounds and ounces. It is a very sensible regime over there: mandatory dual marking for prepackaged, customary measures alone for loose. In contrast, Britain is faced with the worst of both worlds: optional use of imperial throughout as a 'supplementary indication', i.e. alongside but subordinate to the metric units - a few fresh-food retailers struggling to show customary measures as well as metric with many more circumventing the regulations somehow, and an equal lack of consistency in prepackaged goods. What a mess!
14 References to 'dual marking' in the UK, therefore, are invalid, not only because there is no requirement for duality - since only metric is obligatory - but also because duality implies parity, which does exist. The term 'dual mark' is a cheat - for only the metric marking counts. Neither Brussels nor Westminster is remotely concerned whether or not imperial continues to be used. We have now reached the very heart of the matter. For it follows that: 1) Since imperial may be used, whether on pre-packed or on loose, only as a supplementary indication, and since such use is entirely discretionary, it cannot have any legal significance. Its only function is the provision of additional information - like any other useful but gratuitous additional information - for which no permission can possibly be required! 2) Since universal unit-pricing by metric is to be enforced, it is of no consequence to Brussels or Westminster whether the customary equivalent is added or not. 3) The presumption that government, having imposed metrication, can grant or withhold permission governing provision of discretionary additional information, is monstrous and clearly ultra vires.
15 So the Minister's boast that he has actually succeeded in obtaining authority from the EC to grant us permission to use customary measures for the purpose of providing discretionary additional information to the customer (but only for the next ten years!) is preposterous and fraudulent. This is the colossal confidence trick, played on trade associations, chambers of commerce, the media, as well as politicians and the BWMA itself It must be exposed. The gigantic bluff must be called: the government's will tested. Since everybody is free to provide that additional information, as any court is surely bound to declare, Britain will soon operate an unofficial bilateral system, using metric for formal purposes and imperial informally. That is, until compulsory metrication is finally repealed and freedom of choice restored.
16 Meanwhile, within the next few months, the law requires some 60,000 retailers to convert or replace their weighing machines and stock systems. Most will not even have that long, once they learn the facts. Many thousands of shop-keepers, consequently, will not have switched to metric unit-pricing by the due date; either because their new machines have not yet been delivered owing to late ordering, or because they are still not sure whether their old dual imperial-metric scales are acceptable or can be adapted rather than replaced, or because they cannot immediately afford the capital outlay, or cannot decide whether to close the business rather than incur such trouble and expense. Because of the new hygiene regulations, many butchers will have to buy two or even three new sets of scales; even though their customers, this time next year and the year after, will continue to ask for 8 ounces of mince, a pound of sausages, a 12-pound turkey. . .
17 No financial assistance is offered. The Minister is indifferent to their plight; as all that matters is enforcement of a metric monopoly in compliance with the EC Directive. Besides, private food-retailers wield no political influence, unlike the big supermarket groups, whose support for metrication is forever cited. Not surprisingly, for it is another nail in the coffin of the small shop-keeper - especially in a village or small town centre struggling to survive in the shadow of an out-of-town supermarket, or on a run-down Council housing estate. As the Minister states: "The supermarket chains, which account for 80 per cent of sales of loose goods, have started selling loose goods in metric weights." Presumably he would rather that figure were 100 per cent.
18 The supermarket groups love metrication, too, because conversion from pounds and ounces to grams has directly facilitated 'product shrinkage', especially with their 'own brand' labels, thereby inflating profits. Hitherto, the public have always enjoyed the safeguard afforded by the fixed standards of the pound, ounce and pint, conferring a sense of value, relating quantity to price; but now they are being robbed of that protection, as the metric system provide no such convenient measures. Consequently, consumers are at the mercy of the deceptive impressions of size or volume created by packaging and presentation. An item that was traditionally sold in a llb carton or can, when metricated, became 453.59g, which was quickly rounded down to 450g; which was then eroded further by rival brands, all looking much the same and at much the same price. How is the eustomer supposed to compare for value? As an advertising agent remarked: "If I can make my elient's 410g box look bigger than the rival's 425g box, that's an extra 3.5% profit! The packet of potato crisps was traditionally, invariably, 20z, which equated to 56.7g, immediately dwindling to 55g, then down further, until now half a dozen competing brands offer anything from 50 to 30g. This is "the great gram scam!"
19 Similarly, what was always sold in a pint bottle translated to 568ml, rounded down to 560ml, and then reducing further~ MiIlilitres - milli-cheaters! The market is boumd to exploit this absence of recognized standards of quantity. Product shrinkage meets far less customer resistance than price increases. Consumers are increasingly ignorant as to the quantities of what they are buying, having to rely on vague indications of size such as 'regular', 'economy', 'jumbo', etc. Such is the chaos resulting from metrication, wholly against the interests of consumers but wholly in the interests of supermarket companies, which apparently this government prefers.
20 Incidentally, those vague indications of size are technically illegal since nothing is legal except the prescribed metric units. This brings us to another issue of immense legal magnitude. The law in any free, democratic society is proscriptive, in that it stipulates what you must not do - commit murder, walk on the grass naturally implying that anything not expressly prohibited is lawful, but metrication perverts justice, in that it stipulates precisely what you must do - i.e. use exclusively the metric units as scheduled - thereby condemning as unlawful any and every kind of measurement not mentioned! So a trader could be guilty of a criminal offence for no reason other than an oversight by the officials responsible for the Annex to the Directive! The presumption is not innocence in the absence of guilt but criminality in the absence of exemption. This is a constitutional abomination. It is essentially a totalitarian form of regulation. How MPs and administrative lawyers can tolerate it is beyond belief. The only possible explanation is simply that they are unaware of it, owing to the official policy of concealment and confusion.
21 But such prescriptive law inevitably creates absurdities. The commodity above all that is supplied exclusively by the kilogram and kilometre is red tape! Arbitrary decisions have to be taken by anonymous officials as to which among hosts of colloquial, tertiary and proprietary terms of measurement (ranging from an '8 person' lift to a '31/2"' floppy disk, a 'yard of chocolate' to a 'quarter-pounder' hamburger and a 'king-size' bed to 'Al-6' paper-sizes or the hybrid 'metric foot' of 30cm/11.81in) are to be granted authorization or quasi-metric status. Many others, not yet considered, remain open to future challenge. Lists have had to be prepared of the many varieties of fruit and vegetables that have always been and may continue to be sold by number or else by bunch rather than by weight. The bureaucratic contortions arising from the need to identify every exemption - and to determine what qualifications or conditions may require to be attached to each - are quite mad. Again, the utilities (gas, electricity, water) conventionally use all sorts of technical units which strictly, under the new regulations, are illegal, but no doubt enjoy immunity. Such are the perils of prescriptive law; numerous units that are technically incorrect but indispensable having to be accorded 'honorary' metric status.
22 Another intolerable feature of compulsory metrication is that, while there are so many grey areas, no machinery exists for their clarification, nor is anybody likely to bring a test case - for a whole series of test cases would be needed. A judicial review of metrication legislation in toto would have been desirable but is years too late. Meanwhile, since the government's sole concern is to declare Britain a fully metricated country, the propriety or condition of the law is immaterial. Indeed, it is unlikely that honest traders will be prosecuted, merely for the offence of continuing to use customary measures. Not a single prosecution has proceeded to a conviction since metrication of pre-packed goods came into force on I October 1995. If a case were brought against a fishmonger for selling haddock by the pound, the tabloid press and TV would have a field-day, and the magistrate's court could well dismiss the charge as patently unreasonable, or levy a derisory fine of 'one pound' - which would be most appropriate! It is hoped that such a prosecution will be brought, in order that it may be fiercely contested and probably thrown out, but the government does not intend to instruct local authorities (the Trading Standards Officers' employers) to pursue prosecutions, not only to avoid umpopularity but also because they would serve no purpose, since metrication never had anything to do with trade but is purely a political objective to gratify the EC. The TSOs up and down the country will make a show of warnings, harassment, intimidation and even confiscation of offending equipment, to keep the bureaucrats happy, but hardly ever go further. Misunderstanding and unenforceability have already brought metrication law into disrepute which, once the final regulations are in place, will turn into contempt.
23 The only circumstance likely to prompt a prosecution is if a number of retailers in a particular trade, all of whom had dutifully converted to metric, complained to their local TSO that another competitor was doing better business because he hadn't. As the DTI have explained: "a common date for conversion ....ensures that traders do not gain an unfair competitive advantage by delaying their changeover." This is an official admission that traders who continue to use imperial will increase their business by giving the public what they want, which must not be allowed! (The same mentality, as on the domestic front, had been revealed concerning external trade, in a letter from the DTI saying: "At present manufacturers in other Member States have difficulty in competing with UK manufacturers in imperial units. For this reason alone it is unlikely that other Member States would support an extension beyond 31 December 1999." In other words, British firms do more business by supplying goods in imperial whenever required, which again must not be allowed!) Even in this circumstance, the authority might be deterred from taking a case to court, because the grounds for complaint - the commercial motivation - would be exposed in evidence, thereby proving the disbenefits of metrication!
24 It is necessary now to expose two historical myths - the 1965 myth and the EC myth - in the Minister's statement. He says: "Since 1965, successive Administrations have promoted the use of metric weights and measures in order to assist industry to compete in an increasingly metric global market. The debate since 1965 has been about the pace and timing of the change from imperial to metric units for specific purposes." Once again, one wonders how the USA, whose domestic economy is by far the biggest marketplace, where the inch-pound system prevails, and which dominates the global computer and aerospace industries, maintains and increases its supremacy! One also wonders why industry, which in the UK has been perfectly free to use metric units since 1897, needs the EC or Whitehall to compel it to do what is in its own commercial interests? One wonders, finally, where this alleged "debate" has been taking place? The only debate is between those who believe in competition and freedom of choice, as in the USA, and those who do not. Note the absence of any reference in this fictitious statement to compulsion. There has been no debate about the pace and timing of metrication because until compulsion was introduced only four years ago the debate on the respective merits of the two systems was even-handed - a fair give-and-take - and since then the only debate has been on the issue of compulsion itself.
25 '1965' has no significance whatever; but supporters of metrication need it in order to suggest that Britain was committed to metrication before joining the EC that it was a voluntary decision on our part rather than forced upon us. Every tyranny needs a myth to validate its origins. No legislation was passed in 1965. The only shred of evidence the government can find to mark this date is from Hansard for 25 May of that year, featuring a statement by Mr Jay (President of the Board of Trade) saying he was impressed by the case for adoption of the metric system - by a long-term, gradual, voluntary process - and was arranging for the British Standards Institution to investigate. So much for the relentless assertions, by the DTI, Commissioner Bangemann and everybody else in authority, that "The UK took a decision in 1965 to..." or "Ever since 1965 Britain has been committed to..." ad nauseam. If every statement of a tentative or preliminary nature by any Cabinet Minister, to the effect that (s)he was contemplating some new policy, had the effect of a binding statute, we could dispense with back benches, Upper House, Parliamentary Committees and Royal Assent, but then nobody on the front bench would ever dare get up to speak! Yet a copy of that one page from Hansard is bound within the report as 'Appendix B', because nothing exists other than this ephemeral fragment to support the myth.
26 The historical truth is that following Macmillan's abortive application for Britain to join the Common Market, rebuffed by de Gaulle, in 1962, Harold Wilson came to power in 1964, determined that he would succeed where the Tories had failed. An undertaking that Britain would go metric went into the packaging for the new bid. Hence Jay's statement to the House. It should be remembered that Labour were elected with a precariously small majority, having to go to the country again in '66 to win parliamentary control and credibility, after two years of desperate improvisation. The Secretary of State for Economic Affairs was George Brown who resigned in '66 when his prices and incomes policy collapsed, whereupon he became Foreign Secretary, but de Gaulle said 'encore non!' in '67, then Brown resigned again in '68 during the gold crisis. So much for the 1965 legend: it was just part of another botched attempt to take Britain into Europe, by an interim administration in constant turmoil and incapable of long-term policies. As a hangover from that sad episode, Wilson was obliged to set up a Metrication Board in '69, but promised that metrication would always be a voluntary process, as did his three successors at no.l0: Heath, Callaghan and Thatcher. Compulsory metrication, consequently, breaks the pledge given by four Prime Ministers.
27 Heath, assuming office in 1970, was determined to take Britain into the Common Market, succeeding in 1973, his preparations including a White Paper on 'Metrication' in 1972, again designed to impress the six European nations. This was the first document on the subject produced by any government, and the only one of any significance prior to the EEC Directives. It is all the more important because compulsory metrication has never been proposed in any political party's manifesto before any general election and therefore has never had a democratic mandate. The White Paper stressed: "There can never be an 'M-day' on which the country, or retail trade as a whole, goes metric." So the regulations coming into force after 31 December break that undertaking. It also noted: "The Second Annual Report of the Metrication Board describes the manner and the progress of the voluntary introduction of metric measurements by the various sectors of industry." In 1980, after Thatcher came to power in 1979, the Metrication Board was scrapped, government deciding that it had gone far enough in promoting voluntary metrication. The 1985 Weights and Measures Act authorized both imperial and metric units equally. Clearly, this new DTI 'report' relies heavily on historical ignorance.
28 The other myth is ventilated again in the Minister's statement: "Under legislation made in 1994, goods sold loose by weight - mainly fresh food - must be priced and weighed in grams and kilograms after 31 December 1999." Note that this "legislation" is not identified: there is no reference to EC regulations. No admission, either, that a ten-year extension might have been obtained but that no attempt had been made to apply for it. The great EC myth is that metrication ever had anything to do with trade or the economy, whereas in fact it has always been led by the Foreign Office. We have already seen that the 1965 myth arose from the unsuccessful, and the 1972 White Paper from a successful, bid to take the UK into the EC.
29 Let us take this opportunity, once and for all, to place on record the complete official (but little known) history of compulsory metrication, as published in the House of Commons Library Research Paper 95/78 ("Metrication and the sale of goods") dated 22 June 1995:
"The new regulations implement EC Directive 89/617EEC which amended the Units of Measurement Directive 80/181 EEC. The amending Directive was first adopted in draft form by the European Commission in December 1988. It was proposed as a single market measure and consequently it came under the co-decision procedure, subject to qualified majority voting in Council. Following its progression through the European parliament and Council, the Directive was finally adopted at a General Affairs Council on 27 November 1989. The following Ministers were present at the Council from the UK: Douglas Hurd MP, Linda Chalker MP and Francis Maude MP. In July 1994, in response to a PQ, the President of the Board of Trade [Michael Heseltine] announced that the Government had laid six Statutory Instruments before parliament implementing 'the Units of Measurement Directive in relation to the authorization of units of measurement and their use for weights and measures and price marking purposes.' The three SIs subject to affirmative resolution of the House were debated in the First Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments on I November 1994. [The other three SIs were already "made before laying" since they did not even require 'affirmative resolution'] The Committee resolved that it had considered all its three SIs without a formal vote. They were then formally approved by the House, being 'nodded through' without a vote, on 2 November 1994."
30 So there is the whole grisly saga: straight from a private EEC Council Meeting in Brussels, where Britain was represented by the full Foreign Office team - who had no say in the matter anyway because it was subject to QMV - to a private Standing Committee Meeting at Westminster almost FIVE YEARS later at which approval was given without a formal vote, then nodded through the House of Commons the next morning! Two further comments: (a) Hansard reveals that this item occupied the Standmg Committee for all of twenty minutes, but it was not "debated" at all, the fourteen Members being too busy joking about the length of a cricket pitch, the sacred pint of beer and difficulties in converting old coinage to decimal; (b) within that five-year interval, the small matter of a General Election had taken place in 1992, and under our constitution no administration can bind its successor, but of course the EC is unconcerned by such niceties. So much for a voluntary decision by the British people!
31 To end on a lighter note, it is ironic that the glossy leaflets issued by the DTI as metric guides for retailers and shoppers state that "The text of this leaflet is also available in the following languages: Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese, and Welsh." The reason for this very proper provision, of course, is deference to the cultures of these many immigrant minorities, which we must help to preserve. And the purpose of the leaflet? To destroy a vital part of our native culture!
32 This paper is an indictment of the 'metrickery by successive govemments, in implementation of EC Directives, throughout this decade of deceit from 1989 to 1999. It accordingly confronts the BWMA with the issue: is there any room for compromise between compliance and non-compliance with the metric monopoly which has been so slyly, undemocratically, unpopularly, unnecessarily imposed upon us? Can such an institution as BWMA advocate public defiance and civil disobedience: is there any alternative? What other body can lead the resistance: what hope is possible for any future relaxation - let alone eventual repeal - without widespread non-compliance from the outset, and who else is to promote it? Do the motives and methods that have governed compulsory metrication over the years - set against the affected principles of British law and considerations of human rights leave us with any choice?
33 What is certain is that the next few months, before and beyond 31 December, are crucial. A decision now on this crucial issue - the culmination of our campaign throughout these last five years - cannot be avoided. Do we allow ourselves to be forced into a Milli-millennium or are we resolved to enter a Millennium? The people have never been consulted - they are only now being told! Yet the two national, independent, scientific opinion polls (Nov. 97 and Feb. 99) both showed that over 72% of the population, aged 15 upwards, prefer imperial to metric. We have the measure of public opinion: are we going to make it count?
34 BWMA believes that these regulations are unsound legally and unworkable. Therefore the immediate objective must be to have them tested in a court of law. Until their doubtful legality has been tested, both enforcement and compliance should be deferred. That is surely the most responsible, transparent and conciliatory position to take at the present stage.
British Weights and Measures Association
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Edinburgh EH7 5JX
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