When is a standard not a standard?

[Suff]

When you do not quality check and police it.

Who remembers what is wrong with this image and why?

For reference it is the back of a surface mount socket and USB charge point. You are looking at the entry point for the three mains cables.

If you look closely you can see the EU CE certification on the lower half of the casing. That certification means it is certified for sale in all EU countries.

[Workingman]

Not to worry, we are out of the EU. So long as blue goes to blue the other wires can go anywhere - we control things now, Bunter said so.

[Suff]

Well, when we go to WTO rules at the end of the year, that will be true.

It will be interesting when EU manufacturers have to meet UK standards, which are higher than CE standards, won't it....

We will, of course, sample and test too.

Because the EU cannot even meet and police their own standards, then they are going to have a really hard time selling into the UK.

For those who missed my cryptic question, which WM chose to ignore, UK electricians had to be Eye tested for red green colour blindness. Because it really is bad not being able to tell between live and earth.

We changed our standards in 77 to have the twin colour earth, then in 2004 we applied the EU CE standard of a brown live cable and a blue neutral.

Brown and blue don't matter as anyone who has used German plugs will attest, but Earth being wrong can be the difference between life and death.