Meet the ‘rebel’ Brexiteers fighting metric system, one street at a time
Britain first began introducing the metric system in the 1960s, and the move was accelerated by the need to harmonise measurements across the EU
Armed with high-vis jackets, a ladder and a half-inch spanner, Tony Bennett and Derek Norman are the foot soldiers of Brexit, waging a slow but successful battle against metrication, one street at a time.
As the setting sun casts an orange glow on the high street in Thaxted, a small town in southeast England, Bennett carefully sticks a plastic card onto a street sign so it gives distances in yards, not metres.
“They were such nice signs, it was a shame to alter them,” says Norman, the 82-year-old chairman of Active Resistance to Metrication (ARM).
When we took down the first sign my heart was beating in fear that we would be arrested. After you do it a few times, you lose the fear
Speaking at his home in Huntingdon, eastern England, after the Thaxted job, he said imperial measurements are “part of our culture” that need defending.
Britain first began introducing the metric system in the 1960s, and the move was accelerated by the need to harmonise measurements across the EU. But the government has stepped back from ditching imperial measures altogether due to public opposition, driven by activists such as Norman and Bennett – both supporters of the anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP).
Today, while most public business and packaged food use metric units, traffic signs are in miles and yards and beer, cider and milk are sold in pints.
In the confusion, local authorities and businesses continue to install signs in metres – which Norman and Bennett, ARM’s secretary, feel they have a duty to amend.
“When we took down the first sign my heart was beating in fear that we would be arrested,” said Bennett. “After you do it a few times, you lose the fear.”