Getting rid of those hated EU rules

'It clearly cannot be stated enough that the UK has had a say in the rules ensuring that all EU nations play the same way. This happens two ways, in the council of ministers and in the European Parliament. So the EU is not as undemocratic as Brexiteers maintain. But perhaps for forty years our elected representatives have been kicking and screaming against all the oppressive diktats imposed by a tyrannical majority in Brussels?

Well no, actually. A business owner named Jim Grace has taken the trouble to tot up the directives which the UK fought against to the last, and the result is 72, out of 4,514. (The total number of UK laws passed in the same time was 34,105, which refutes another popular Brexiteer myth.) Here is an extract from his take on the rules we (under both Labour and the Conservatives) do not like. (I have added some highlighting in an appropriate blue.) The complete list is at
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/rationalist-destroys-leavers-with-list-of-all-eu-laws-that-have-been-forced-on-us-against-our-will/22/01/

So… what inequities were forced upon us, what degradation, what humiliations for a proud island nation? Let’s have a little look shall we? I have put a link to each law we voted “no” to… and my own TLDR, if you don’t fancy wading through the legalese….

(1/72) 29/03/1996 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:31996L0021 … EU: Food labels should say if Aspartame is present. UK: Nonsense. Bloody red tape! (Linked to cancer, headaches and seizures, even Pepsi USA stopped using it by 2015)

(2/72) 29/04/1996 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:01996L0022-20081218&from=IT … EU: Ban on livestock growth-boosters with hormonal, thyrostatic or beta-agonist effects (carcinogenic residue in meat). UK: Aw come on – a little bit of cancer never hurt no-one.

(3/72) 03/06/1996 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:31996L0035&from=EN … EU: Safety advisers dealing with transport of dangerous goods on public roads etc must be properly trained and regulated. UK: Bleedin elf’n’safety gorn mad. Wassamatta wiv a bit a toxic spillage across a playground?

[...]

(71/72) 05/03/2015 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32015R0758 … EU: Some rules about type approval of e-Call systems (they automatically call 999 in a car crash) UK: More Euro-bollocks. Wouldn’t have saved Diana, hawhawhaw.

(72/72) 23/06/2015 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52015PC0569 … EU: The CJEU needs more judges to deal with a big backlog of cases. UK: But we LIKE cases to wait ages. It means only the wealthy – who can afford to wait – can get justice.

FINISHED!

Cries of “VAT!”. a) My thread was “rules we opposed” not “rules we supported” b) If a 15% floor is so intolerable, how comes our VAT is 20% and the lowest in the whole EU is 17%? c) We could have listed sanitary towels at 0% VAT – like Ireland did – but HMG couldn’t be arsed.