I agree with you. In the UK at least, 'U-Turn' is a classic part of the political lexicon. Sometimes focus groups will indicate that a policy direction might b

I agree with you. In the UK at least, 'U-Turn' is a classic part of the political lexicon. Sometimes focus groups will indicate that a policy direction might be a non-starter. Or something will be perceived to be so unpalatable to the public that it wouldn't even make the manifesto and be campaigned on. Sometimes, proposed government legislation makes it a bit further and it comes under the scrutiny of the media. Backlashes from the media can amplify blacklashes in the populace, leading to the proposed laws being toned down or abandoned completely. Not always, not even frequently, but enough. In one particular case, the public backlash was enough to depose a PM with a reputation for an iron grip on power (Thatcher and the Poll Tax). I think this contrasts with legislation proposed by the EU Commission (motivation: unknown, perhaps in a significant part to the 300,000 paid lobbyists in Brussels), which seems at the public level to come out of nowhere and inevitably be approved by an obedient EU Parliament as a formality. This particular instance might be used as an example of resistance being futile anyway, but I think it's a slightly different case. You're not going to get 500,000 people being photographed marching past Parliament with placards displaying "hands off my filth".