It was back in the late 1990s that a colleague of mine informed me of the impending demise of British Standards. What nonsense I thought, as only a madman (Tony Blair) would allow our country to lose one of its best trademarks. We were still digesting the EU’s Working Time Directive (WTD) along with a myriad of other EU-forced regulation when it became clear that our British Standards were to no longer be maintained by the British Standards Institute. Despite our best efforts to resist the untold damage all these changes would mean for British businesses, our protestations fell on deaf ears. Indeed, the most common phrase from government departments was: “Nothing we can do about it, it’s the EU rules”. One wondered what on earth the point was of us maintaining our powerless politicians, as they hid behind the veil of EU protectionism. It was at this time that I started to fight back. Those early days were difficult, for a few of us it felt like everything was against us, it was ...