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LAST UPDATE | 29 May 2022
BORIS JOHNSON IS set to make an announcement that could pave the way for increased use of imperial measurements after the UK’s break with the European Union, reports have said.
The UK government is preparing to open a consultation into how to further incorporate imperial measurements in Britain, the PA news agency understands.
Brandon Lewis, a Conservative MP and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, has said that voters and businesses are “pleased” with the move
Ministers are preparing to consult on how to further incorporate imperial measurements in Britain after Brexit, with Boris Johnson reportedly keen to announce the move on Friday to coincide with the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
The move has faced criticism from the Conservative backbenches, with Alicia Kearns – one of at least 20 Tory MPs to declare they have lost confidence in the Prime Minister over his handling of lockdown-busting parties in Downing Street – calling the idea “a nonsense”.
The EU weights and measures directive came into force in 2000, with traders legally required to use metric units for sale-by-weight or the measure of fresh produce.
It remains legal to price goods in pounds and ounces but they have to be displayed alongside the price in grams and kilograms.
But the consultation, which is being co-ordinated by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, could change those stipulations, allowing traders to choose how they price fresh items.
Kearns, an MP for Rutland and Melton, tweeted that “not one constituent, ever, has asked for this”.
She added: “This isn’t a Brexit freedom. It’s a nonsense.”
Lewis, however, said it would allow the likes of greengrocers and pub landlords to run their businesses as they see fit following the UK’s exit from the European Union.
He told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme: “This gives people and businesses the freedom.
“There are sectors out there – I know people out there in my constituency, the market traders and vegetable traders as well as some of the pubs – which will be pleased to be able to go back to those imperial measurements.
“We’re just saying you now have a choice, and now we’ve left the EU we can do that.
“Yes, it is one of the smaller things we can do since we left the EU, there are other bigger things we can do and want to do, but it is an indication we now have the freedom to make these decisions ourselves.”
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I think Boris is a few lbs short of a kilo…
@Ronan McCann: haha brilliant
@Ronan McCann: Give him an inch and he takes a mile
@Ronan McCann: This doesn’t make an ounce of sense.
Give the Brits 2.54cm and they’ll take a mile
@Shay Murray: I’d More like they are Running out of Miles self inflicted l guess
Let them do it.
It won’t last furlong…
Deflect from the edits in the report.
Deflect from the changes to the Ministerial Code
Deflect, deflect, deflect.
@Tricia G ☘️: exactly. Try and stir some patriotic nationalism to deflect from one’s own failings and law breaking.
@Tricia G ☘️: thropw another dead cat on the table….
If garbage like this actually entices people to vote fur him then they deserve everything they get.
On a personal note, my car still gets 40 rods to the hogs head and that’s how I likes it!
@Shane McGettrick: Mine goes 300 hectares on a single tank of kerosene. I just put it in H
Another way for partygate guilt to be inched out of the limelight? Bring back the Farthing I say, that’ll bamboozle the blighters!
Metric is might
@The Ghost of Micheal Collins: it’ll be £8.00 for a gallon of petrol. They’ll need bigger signs for the prices….
Another giant leap back from progress. How can the brits allow these donkeys to run the country?
What a silly annOUNCEment.
@Frank Cauldhame:
Douze pints..
Give him an inch and he will take 1.609 kilometers.
Another step back in time for the UK.
I think Boris is s few lbs short of a kilo…
Pity he wouldn’t go and hide under a bushel!!
Good God, how will that work for people using calculators and spreadsheets?
@Sean O’Shea: Oh please, leave logic and common sense out of it! LOL
@Leo Sharkey: exactly, Boris already has!
What a laughing stock the UK has become.
Now we will have even more ways of measuring Boris’s ego and incompetence.
Whether it’s 111kgs on 17 stone 6lbs, he’s still the same pile of sh ite.
@Brian Farrell: how many eejits could you squeeze out of him Brian?! Haha….Have used that one a good few times after seeing it on here…..think twas your comment?!
@Joe Kennedy: at least a dozen.
The business associations in the U.K. are giving out yards about this.
Going backwards trying to hold on tight to ‘the good ould days’.
Sad
Well I always liked the fact that an Irish mile was longer than an English mile and our whiskey shots were bigger too!
The Imperial system of measurement is much better then the metric system.The US uses imperial measurements so we should follow them.
@Roger Bond: how is it better? And why should we follow America?
@Bríann O Connor: America is the most influential country in the world today especially in the West.
We follow all their SM platform and TV media.
In Ireland we should accept that imperial is the future and we should become eagar adopters of their systems.
@Roger Bond: Imperial is the future? No it’s not it’s the past. Just because the US do something doesn’t mean we should.
@Roger Bond: and yet the imperial system is only officially used by 3 countries – Myanmar, Liberia and the US. And when you consider that imperial measures are defined by the metric system (the inch is defined as 2.54cm, for instance), the US is sorta metric. And then consider NASA – they officially moved to metric when they lost a Mars probe due to the confusion of imperial measures. Metric is the almost universal measuring system, and it is the system used by international science and engineering.
@Roger Bond: I think your love of the dram, or the pint, shows in your ‘reasoning’, even at this early hour.
@Deirdre O’Byrne: The US military is metric as well
@Martin Jordan: yup, someone’s half a click short of a furlong.
@Roy Dowling: Sorry just joking …
@Roger Bond: your joke comment shows how mad the world is that your comment could be serious. And why is saying something backwards be toxic journal ?
@Roger Bond: well their most popular bullets are metric….. 9mm
@Roger Bond: “The metric system is a consistent and coherent system of units. In other words, it fits together very well and calculations are easy because it is decimal. This is a big advantage for use in the home, education, industry and science” https://ukma.org.uk/press/reasons-to-metricate/ . Reverting to imperial is a bit like going back to using leeches to cure illness. Ultimately its a clumsy method by bojo to create divisions and difficulties working together that has been fostered by eu membership and other progressive methods
@Deirdre O’Byrne:
Actually, NASA were the ones using metric for the Mars Climate Orbiter mishap back in 1998, but their aerospace partners weren’t. They do still have a bit of dual use though, even now.
@Roger Bond: The US system is different to the UKs, and the metric system makes it much easier to be accurate esp in construction.
@Roger Bond: seriously, when most of the things we buy comes from the far east or Europe who use metric.
@finebetty:
That makes things even more confusing when chatting online, a US gallon of water is 3.78litres, or 231 cubic inches, but a UK gallon of water is 4.54litres or 277 cubic inches
(ignoring rounding)
@Roger Bond: what’s an eagar adopter ? Does it do miles to the gallon on Kms to the litre? Or is electric? Are they only available in Boris’s Britain?….
He will try and do anything to deflect from hos complete failure as PM. His oven ready Brexit deal proved to be undercooked and poisonous, his immigration policy has left food rotting in the field and he managed to upset just about every world leader at meetings.
Nobody has done more to break the union than he has.
Give them 2.54cm and they’ll take a mile
So what’s next? Bring back shillings and pence? Or is he on LSD already?
“Want to go back”.
What a realistic idea – sausages here are still sold by the lb or 454 grams.. as is butter and beer in pints – any idea why the ruler is 30 cm long – because that is an imperial foot. What about clothes chest measurements and waste lines and inside legs. We are a fool to think imperial is gone
Metric is great, make no mistake but they are scientific breakdown and not useful measurements. The cm is too small and the meter too big, remembering we had inches and feet before the yard with is nealy a meter. Same applies to grams to kilograms where we had ounces and pounds. I think we should accept both as we did in the transion period. How many people ask for 454 grams of sausages and how many still ask for a pound? Or is it only oldies like me? However I disagree with Boris reasoning.
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: I ask for 0.5kg (in words that is half a kilogram) of sausages actually
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: It’s nice to retain the traditional words for items, I agree with that. Unfortunately the imperial system is next to useless for any meaningful endeavour. It has no base number, it’s not derived from any natural phenomena or constant. It’s measurements of specific items vary wildly depending on countries. It’s really is an absurd system with no practical use.
I hope they go back to pounds, shillings and pence.
@Tom O’Hanlon: and insist their army use muzzle loading muskets.
Since they are intent on going backwards why not rerun all them Penalty Shootouts that caused so much handwringing and anguish?
Oh, Boris. You ludraman.
This lad needs a Sword of Damocles hanging over him if anyone ever did.
You have a whole younger generation that’s never used an imperial measurement In their lives , this is daft.
I now live in Northern Ireland. I am early fifties, I have travelled and worked throughout Europe and North America, I was stunned to find virtually nobody here could understand the metric system that I grew up with in Ireland, as the UK has some 20% of it’s populace illiterate, and NI some 27% of it’ populace illiterate, it will probably come as a great relief to them…
Jingoism at it’s worst
Minister for diversion, truly incredible.
But any exports to Europe will still have to be labeled in metric.
Will some tell this dip stick time travel is not possible
Fractions are more accurate. No recurring numbers.
@Ken Miles: The relevance of this isn’t clear, but as for accuracy … 1/3 as a non-recurring decimal???
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