Metrification - Victory over Brussels
WORKERS, JUNE 2007 ISSUE
Britain will be "allowed" to keep pounds, ounces, feet and inches, after EU Industry Commissioner Gunther Verheugen dramatically announced he would drop plans to enforce metrification by 2009.
Faced with a persistent campaign by the Metric Martyrs, set up when five market traders were convicted in 2000 for displaying prices in imperial measures, the EU has been made to back down.
Sunderland greengrocer Steve Thoburn, convicted of breaking EU law (enforced zealously by Labour), led the fight with fishmonger Neil Herron. Thoburn died of a heart attack aged 39 in 2004, days after his appeal was rejected.
Herron called the u-turn "a monumental victory for people power...We stood toe to toe with the EU and won...and [have] shown others that you can stop the tide of EU legislation. Steve Thoburn was the man who drew the line in the sand...The public had never wanted or asked for imperial measures to be abolished and no political party had ever put it in their manifesto that they intended to criminalise the use of imperial measures."
No doubt EU bosses are keen to brush up their image at a time when they are planning to force through the rejected Constitution without a vote. Nevertheless it was the traders' courage and refusal to give way which finally forced the Commission's hand.