British motorists driving abroad will have to make changes to their plans after the UK Government performed an embarrassing u-turn on their decision on which stickers to use.
For many years, a vehicle which travelled on the continent proudly displayed GB lettering, with classic cars from decades gone by all featuring the stickers.
But from September this year, the letters will be changed from GB to UK, a significant change for thousands of vehicles and likely to catch plenty of people out who believe that they may have the correct signage. The decision has infuriated many, including Conservative MP, Ian Liddell-Grainger who said: “That is a bit bloody rum.
“I can’t see the point. It seems to me to be a complete waste of money when we don’t need to be wasting money.
“It also seems to be a slap in the face for people who are proud to be GB.
“It is a waste of time, a waste of money. I don’t know why we are bothering.”
The news is also likely to infuriate many businesses which have stocks of the GB sticker and those who have number plates which include the old GB and EU flag, which until September is still legal, but not on new cars.
The AA who has 50,000 GB stickers in stock has said that it may have to give them away as beer mats.
“From a heritage point of view, we have lots of classic cars, such as Jaguars, Spitfires, and so on, that have metal GB signs on the rear of the car,” said AA president Edmund King in The Telegraph.
“Now I don’t propose that they take them off but what they will now have to do is have a tacky plastic UK sticker alongside it.
“So from a historic perspective, we have lost the tax disk on the windscreen and we are now losing another element of British motoring, the famed GB sticker.
What can you do with a used GB sticker? Maybe Wetherspoons can use them as beer mats, or we can sell them to anyone with the initials, maybe Gordon Brown or Gareth Bale, but that’s a very niche market.”