To clarify: I find the UK’s knife ban stupid, and it affects me personally (I often cook at friends’ places and, if these friends have no proper knives, I bring my chef’s knife; I also own two valuable antique swords but the rules for bringing them into the country are so complicated that they are indefintely stored at my parents’ place in another country). But like you said, it has nothing to do with EU legislation. And there’s a specific historical context which at least gives some explanation as to why the rule exists in the first place.