All this talk of educating the pilot population outside the UK who do not seem to know what the IMC rating actually does is a total waste of time.
The only people who you have to convince are the national aviation authorities and their representatives at EASA level plus a few pilot organisations. Convincing a pilot from Bordeaux will make no difference but if you can convince the French licensing officer then it is unlikely that French pilots are going to object.
Unfortunately, those people know what the IMC rating is and remember the JAR-FCL negotiations and why the IMC rating go it's special paragraph in JAR-FCL. One has to agree that any national aviation authority would have grave concerns with letting pilots having as little as 5 hours IMC flight training in the aircraft loose in their IFR system.
The CAA privately also can not see a way forward for the IMC with the future european airspace and IFR operation that is comming to the UK.
Statements saying that the IMC is a poor mans IR make the position worse.
The best way forward is to accept that the IMC rating is gone. Far better to work on a PPL-IR (a qualification suitable for flying IFR anywhere) and more importantly, credit for the IMC rating holders towards obtaining that IR.
Regards,
DFC