In message , at 12:09:31 on
Sun, 13 Nov 2016, Optimist remarked:

What's the ratio for consumer items, in other words exclude the things
sold to industry like aircraft engines.

Why exclude aircraft engines?

Because they are not designed around consumer-protection rules.

So you don't mind if planes fall out of the sky?

They have their own rules, not the B2C rules which get people het up
about Brussels. Having said that, the banana rules are B2B not B2C.

Do you really expect the rest of the world to bring their laws into
line with the EU?

You are missing the point. If your business is mainly domestic, selling
things which pass the UK regs, then at the moment you can expand your
market to the whole EU without a second thought (or any redesign,
re-testing etc).

A red herring - manufacturers in China, Japan, S Korea don't have any
problems in reaching standards in EU, USA etc. already.

They are the multi-billion manufacturers. A lot of trade is from much
smaller companies.

Not true. Much of the goods we but from abroad are from small firms.

Do you have any statistics on that? Overseas sales and distribution is
quite expensive, for even larger companies, and I don't see the shops
filled with mon-and-pop manufactured items, rather than global
multinationals.

EU rules tend not to protect consumers but protect producers from
completion e.g. tariffs on food imports, food supplements having to be
tested like drugs, standards for hoists in care homes which only some
manufacturers can produce,

You don't mind OAPs in care homes being dropped in the floor when the
hoist breaks?

banning barometers containing mercury but
not lightbulbs, limits on power usage of vacuum cleaners and kettles.
Consumers will be better off without many of them.

Whether that's true or not (and I detect a significant tinfoil-hat aroma
in your posting) if the rules in question (bee they good or bad) are not
adhered to, you can't export to the EU.

The examples I have given are true. But you miss the point. UK consumers will have the freedom to
buy them from producers in the UK or elsewhere, as we won't have to follow the EU in restricting
choice in order to protect producer cartels.

The only problem is that few people will be making things they can't
also sell to the remaining EU.
--
Roland Perry