Now let’s get back to pounds and ounces say campaigners
MINISTERS were urged yesterday to scrap rules banning the sale of meat, fruit and vegetables in pounds and ounces, following Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.
There were also renewed calls to grant pardons to the Metric Martyrs who were prosecuted in the early 2000s for defying the Brussels’ ban on selling goods in imperial measures.
A campaign group said yesterday that the Brexit vote has triggered a surge of inquiries from shopkeepers about the issue.
The law lets retailers display imperial measurements for goods but these signs cannot be more prominent than the metric version and sales can be made only in kilograms and grams. All measuring devices must display metric quantities.
Warwick Cairns, of the British Weights and Measures Association which opposes compulsory metrication, said: “In 2000, to comply with European legislation, the Government made it a criminal act for a greengrocer to sell a pound of bananas.
“That was outrageous then, it’s outrageous now.
“We’re not trying to turn the clock back, just giving people freedom of choice. That seems compassionate and commonsense.”
He said the legal compulsion to use metric will lapse anyway once Britain leaves the EU.
Eurosceptic Tory MP Peter Bone agreed the Government should permit imperial sales ahead of Brexit. He said: “Given that our biggest trading partner by a mile, the United States, is still on imperial measurements, it has always been silly that we have had to just do it in metric.”
The most famous of five Metric Martyrs prosecuted in the early 2000s for using imperial scales was Sunderland greengrocer Steve Thoburn.
He and fellow campaigners fought a series of court battles to overturn the law but in 2004 Mr Thoburn died suddenly, aged just 39, with a criminal record to his name, with allies blaming the stress of the campaign for his early demise.
Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage said: “Those who were convicted of this utterly victimless crime should be pardoned.”
A butcher featured in the Daily Express in June for giving his customers the choice of how they want to buy their meat said his sales had gone up as a result.
Darren Gratton, from Barnstaple in Devon, said many of his customers want meat sold in imperial measures again.
He said: “The article in the Daily Express put me on the map. People have been so supportive and my business is up 25 per cent.
“People are even travelling down from London to buy their meat from me.”