The advent of the internet, coupled with the credit card, has successfully opened the global market to the individual consumer, allowing us to scour the world for the product we want, at the price of our choice, and with the service we require. Or to put it somewhat differently, the near monopoly of the home market has been broken and they don't like it!
And as always, instead of attempting to win our patronage by fair and open competition, they "go crying" to the parliament for the imposition of a tariff. The parliament, of course, was happy to legislate for them and take 10% or our purchase along the way; an offer they couldn't refuse.
As a free people we have, or rather, we ought to have, the right to be equal players in a free market global economy. Nobody, but nobody, has the right to manipulate our spending by the use of coercion, but they have, and I dare say they will be the ultimate losers for it, for they have played their hand too late: internet trading is here to stay; they and their legislating lackeys will never reverse it. The real power resides with us.
