Parallels with the Brexiteers – winning against the odds

During the Thatcher government of the 1980’s and the Major government of the 1990’s, the Eurosceptics were a fringe movement with few supporters. At the time, UK withdrawal from the EU was unthinkable and few called for the UK to withdraw from the EU, even among the Eurosceptics. Over the years, there were a number of trends that helped the Eurosceptics to gain public support for their cause and Euroscepticism grew in the media and in the Conservative Party. UKMA did not take sides in the Brexit referendum in mid-2016 and takes no position on Brexit or future UK-EU relations. Whatever one thinks of Brexit, the fact remains that the Brexiteers have won against all the odds. Brexit was achieved when the UK left the EU at 11pm GMT on Friday 31 January 2020. How did they achieve this against all the odds and what can UKMA learn from them?

Opposition to metrication has become an article of faith for virtually all Brexiteers and you would be hard-pressed to find one who is pro-metric. They tend to see the European Union as the villains who imposed the metric system on the UK through various EU directives on measurement usage. Hence very little progress has been made on metrication in the UK in the 21st century because the whole political establishment has been too afraid to tackle this flawed narrative. Most Brexiteers are no friends of ours and their cause is unrelated to metrication.

Former PM Margaret Thatcher’s Bruges speech in 1988 sowed the seeds for the growth of Euroscepticism in the UK. In this speech, she expressed her opposition to what she saw as socialism by the back door and the development of a European super-state. While she became increasingly Eurosceptic in the last couple of years as PM, she was never a Brexiteer and never advocated British withdrawal from the EU.

The British press became increasingly hostile to the European project and political movements such as the Anti-Federalist League, UK Independence Party (UKIP) and the Referendum Party emerged to demand a referendum on Britain’s continued EU membership and to campaign for Brexit. Rising support among voters and politicians helped the Brexiteers and put pressure on former PM David Cameron to eventually promise an in-out referendum on UK membership of the EU.

I see numerous parallels between where we are now and where the Brexiteers were in the last century when they were among the Eurosceptics. Back then, there was no word to describe supporters of British withdrawal from the EU. The term Eurosceptic applied to those who opposed further European integration and included those who wanted the UK out of the EU. Euroscepticism has had a long history in the UK. The following BBC article describes the history and milestones of the Eurosceptic movement in the UK:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51021028 ¹

Parallel 1: Hostility

They faced a great deal of hostility from the Establishment. They were called “swivel eyed loons”, “cranks and political gadflies” and “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists”. Look at where we are now with hostility to metrication from the mainstream media and politicians.

Parallel 2: Few Friends and Supporters

The Eurosceptics used to consist of a relatively small number of MPs and there used to be no support among mainstream national newspapers for British withdrawal from the EU and no equivalent of UKIP in the 20th century. These days, it is hard to find politicians who raise these issues publicly in the Houses of Parliament. The late Lord Howe of Aberavon was a notable exception.

Parallel 3: Unpopular

The Brexiteer cause was once very unpopular and hardly anyone in the mainstream media and among politicians openly advocated British withdrawal from the EU in the 20th century. There are too many populists who seek to maintain the status quo while some seek the imperial nostalgia of the past.

Parallel 4: No Media Support

During the Thatcher and Major governments in the 1980’s and 1990’s, there was no single national newspaper that advocated Brexit, the term for British exit from the EU. We have few allies in the press, though there are several anti-metric national newspapers.

Parallel 5: Establishment Opposition

Brexit has been opposed by almost the entire political Establishment. According to one survey by the Press Association, 480 MPs voted Remain and 159 MPs voted Leave in the Brexit referendum that took place on 23 June 2016. ² I wrote about the opposition to metrication among leading figures from the three main political parties and UKIP, a pro-Brexit party, in a previous MV blog. ³ There has been little support for metrication among politicians and it is hard to find any who will raise their heads above the parapet to speak out about the case for metrication.

Parallel 6: Unheard Voices

For many years, the Brexiteers struggled to make themselves heard. For several decades, their demands to get Britain out of the EU were not taken seriously by most politicians or the national newspapers. How much coverage does UKMA get in the media? Very little. We only get limited BBC coverage on metrication because the BBC has a duty of impartiality. At other times, we barely get any coverage at all.

Parallel 7: Unthinkable

It was considered taboo to call for Brexit during the last century and was regarded as the views of a fringe movement. In those days, hardly any Eurosceptic politicians openly called for the UK to pull out of the EU and preferred to demand reforms and put a brake on further integration. At the time, it was unthinkable that the UK would leave the EU one day. Completion of the metrication programme that began in 1965 is considered a taboo subject these days that politicians would prefer to avoid. Hence their silence on this subject.

Parallel 8: Compromises

Years ago, most Eurosceptics did not openly call for the UK to pull out of the EU but concentrated on demanding EU reforms, safeguards against more EU integration, more opt-outs, vetoes, reclaiming powers from the EU, more concessions and renegotiation of British terms of EU membership. While UKMA would like to see the completion of metrication in the UK, we have to be realistic about what we can achieve in the short term. Hence UKMA has concentrated on aligning product descriptions with rules on supplementary indications on packaging, enforcement of existing weights and measures regulations by trading standards officers, and some other limited reforms that have a good chance of adoption in the short term. During the last year, UKMA has spent considerable time fighting the reintroduction of imperial units for trade and the Retained EU Law Bill. While UKMA maintains its long-term objectives to complete metrication in the UK, immediate demands on transport ministers to implement a complete metric changeover on British roads continue to get short shrift.

Parallel 9: Numerous Setbacks

Over several decades, the Eurosceptics suffered many setbacks from their perspective, including:

• The two-thirds majority to stay in the European Economic Community (as the EU was then commonly known) in the 1975 EEC referendum.
• The resounding defeat of Labour leader Michael Foot in the 1983 general election, who ran on a manifesto to withdraw from the EEC.
• The federalist vision of Jacque Delors, former president of the European Commission, leading to further European integration.
• Huge extension of qualified majority voting under the Single European Act.
• Passing of the Maastricht Treaty by the Major government in the early 1990’s.
• Denial of the promised referendum on the European Constitution, that later evolved into the Lisbon Treaty.

UKMA has had numerous setbacks, such as the defeats on the continued use of Supplementary Indications, failure to end imperial-only vehicle dimension signs for many years before dual signage became mandatory in 2016, failure to end loopholes on exclusive use of imperial units in product descriptions and advertising and lack of progress on road signs and other official public signs.

Parallel 10: Long Haul

Many Brexiteers have spent a lifetime campaigning for Brexit, spanning several decades. It took them several decades of perseverance to win. Similarly, UKMA was founded by Chris Keenan in 1999 and has been campaigning to complete the metric changeover for over 20 years. There is no quick victory in sight. With no end in sight to the very British measurement mess, we are in for the long haul.

Parallel 11: Communications with the Few

For years, the Brexiteers gave talks that few people heard and published papers that few people read.

Parallel 12: Lack of Progress

For much of the 20th century, there was a lack of progress from the Brexiteers’ perspective. For much of the time, nothing seemed to be happening while the EU, with British support, was making further steps towards further integration (e.g., Single European Act, Exchange Rate Mechanism membership, Maastricht Treaty, Lisbon Treaty, etc.), going in the opposite direction to the Brexiteers’ destination.

For UKMA, there have been long periods where there has been a lack of progress. We are currently in a stalemate situation where the status quo prevails. Despite sporadic calls to return to pints, pounds and ounces, there have been no actual changes in legislation to put this into practice since the EU membership referendum of 2016 though the Retained EU Law Bill threatens to change that.

These days, it seems that there is not much happening on the metric front, we have suffered numerous setbacks, remain on the margins with few friends in high places and little prospect of further progress in the near future. We can learn from the Brexiteers about perseverance, using significant milestones to our advantage, continuing to get our message across, overcoming Establishment opposition and building momentum. They have proved that numerous significant obstacles can be overcome to triumph in the end. We can win.

UKMA is neutral on Brexit. Even though UKMA neither supports nor opposes Brexit, we ought to think about what lessons we can learn from the Eurosceptic movement and how we can apply them to the cause of metrication. So, what can we learn from the Brexiteers? Metric Views would be interested to hear what readers have to say about the lessons we can learn to win against all the odds.

---

Sources:

1.  “Mavericks to mainstream: The long campaign for Brexit”, BBC News website, 29 Jan 2020 (Link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51021028)
2. “How did my MP vote in the EU referendum?”, Daily Mirror, 3 Nov 2016 (Link: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/how-mp-vote-eu-referendum-9187679)
3. “Positions of main parties and politicians on metrication”, Metric Views, 27 Apr 2017 (Link: https://metricviews.uk/2017/04/positions-of-main-parties-and-politicians-on-metrication/)