The UK is unique among European countries for its continued use of imperial units on road signs. Its road signs are almost exclusively imperial. The use of miles, yards, feet and inches dominates UK road signs whereas the rest of Europe, excluding the crown dependencies in the British Isles, uses metres and kilometres on road signs.
This is the not the only area where the UK is an outlier compared to the rest of Europe. Many other areas of British life are exceptional or highly unusual compared to the rest of Europe. These areas are described in this article.
Hyper-Centralized State
The UK is one of the most centralized states in Europe despite being a multinational state of four nations with their own distinct identities. Compared with federal or devolved systems (Germany, Switzerland, Spain), the UK’s concentration of power in Westminster is exceptional. Even after devolution, England — 85% of the population — has no national parliament or government, another global anomaly. Westminster doubles as England’s parliament and the UK parliament. It deals with England-only issues and UK-wide issues. This is globally unique.
Wholly Unelected Upper House
The House of Lords is fully appointed with over 800 members. It is the only wholly unelected upper house in Europe. In terms of its size, it is the world’s second largest legislature. Only China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) is bigger. The NPC acts as a rubber-stamp for decisions taken by the Chinese Communist Party leadership. The House of Lords is not territorially or vocationally representative and is larger than the House of Commons.
FPTP Electoral System
Compared to Europe, the UK’s winner-takes-all First Past the Post (FPTP) electoral system for general elections is extremely unusual. The vast majority of European countries use some form of proportional representation for electing their national legislature. FPTP has traditionally produced two-party dominance, highly disproportional results and governments with large majorities on minority vote shares. FPTP does not work well in the current era of a fragmented multi-party system.
Private School Influence
Despite the fact that only 7% of children attend private schools in the UK, they dominate politics, the judiciary, the media, military leadership and cultural institutions. No other European country has such a stark elite pipeline from fee‑paying schools. It’s closer to the US Ivy League feeder system — but starting at age 13.
The UK has extremely expensive and exclusive private schools such as Eton, Harrow and Winchester (which are misleadingly called “public schools”) that cost more to attend than most workers’ gross annual salaries. No European countries have anything equivalent to these schools.
Marketized Universities and £9K+ Tuition Fees
Britain pursued mass university expansion more aggressively than almost any European country. Now approximately 50% of young people attend university. The UK used a uniquely debt‑based funding model for the university sector. Pupils pay over £9000 per year to attend university, which the vast majority take out in student loans. In the rest of Europe, public‑university tuition is generally low or zero. As a result of the massive increase in the number of graduates, graduate wage premiums have fallen sharply. The UK’s combination of high fees + mass participation + declining salary returns is genuinely exceptional.
Housing Tenure and Planning Exceptionalism
The UK has one of the most restrictive planning systems in the OECD, very low rates of new construction, high housing costs relative to income and a uniquely powerful “property-owning democracy” ideology. This combination is not found elsewhere in Europe.
Water Privatization
England and Wales are globally unique in privatizing their entire water and sewerage industries. No other country has followed their example. Almost everywhere else, the water industry is run by the state.
Conclusion
This article explores various British policies that are extremely unusual or exceptional compared to European norms. The retention of imperial road signs is one of these policies, but it is not the only one. Perhaps, the fateful decision to abandon the changeover of road signs to metric units in the early 1970’s despite several years of preparatory work is one of the ways the UK has deviated from the rest of Europe. Now the UK is the only European country that uses imperial road signs. Apart from the UK, only Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man use imperial road signs. These territories are crown dependencies, not countries. Outside the British Isles, the rest of Europe uses metres and kilometres (i.e. metric units) on their road signs.
