“A pint of lies, mate, whatever you’re having yourself”

The pint is back!  The nasty pint-banning EU has been defeated, and all is well in Brexit land!  See the predictable headlines:

In 2013, an OECD Report found that, in Britain, literacy and numeracy was much higher in the 55-64 age group than it was in the 16-24 age group.  That may explain why so many credulous people believe that the EU banned the pint.  Even Remainers who scoff at the achievement of such a trivial prize nonetheless concede that it woz the EU wot done it etc.

Nobody checks facts; nobody reads anything.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that whoever is dishonest in little things will be dishonest in big things too.

Currently, as noted above, Brexiters are trumpeting the restoration of the pint measurement as a “key success” of Brexit.

In reality, the UK commenced its metrification process in 1862, pursuant to a Report of that year by the UK’s Select Committee on Weights and Measures recommending the adoption of the metric system. This was 111 years before the UK joined the EEC.  The UK’s 1897 Weights and Measures (Metric System) Act permitted the use of the metric system in the UK; and Britain unilaterally started its metrification programme in earnest in 1965.

Meantime, the EU, realising that the UK was in a complete muddle about which system of measurement to adopt, in 2009 quietly introduced EU legislation (EU directive 2009/3/EC) formally recognising the legal validity of Imperial measurements, forever.

As for the gradual disappearance of the Crown symbol on pint glasses, that was a result of the UK’s own decline in glass manufacturing – most British pint glasses had been sourced from the EU.

In short, Brexiters are blaming the EU for something the UK did, while congratulating themselves for something the EU did.

Regrettably, where Brexit is concerned, it seems that no fact, no matter how trivial, is too insignificant to be lied about.