EU cracker rules madness, says MEP

Brussels are behind children being barred from buying Christmas crackers

Bah humbug rules from Brussels are behind children being barred from buying Christmas crackers, local MEP Paul Nuttall has pointed out.

"Children under 12 are not allowed to buy them because the interring EU says so. More nonsense in our lives from unelected bureaucrats which further highlights the desperate need for us to be free to make our own rules and run our own lives.

"Initially the regulation, the Pyrotechnic Articles (Safety) Regulations 2010, emanating from an EU directive, actually meant children had to be at least 16 before they could not buy them.

"This was reduced to 12 last year but in reality as the purchase triggers the age-limit warning 'Think 25' on supermarket tills children over 12 are still being sent away empty handed," said Mr Nuttall, UKIP deputy party leader.

"This legislation is utterly mad and totally unnecessary. On what planet would anyone describe a Christmas cracker as a pyrotechnic device? Only in the cuckoo world of madness inhabited by Eurocrats.

"It's like the bad jokes you find in such crackers but far more concerning as it demonstrates the stranglehold the EU has on every aspect of our lives."