"An urgent meeting has been arranged between AOPA UK and EASA's Deputy Head of Rulemaking Eric Sivel on December 2 to discuss, inter alia, the UK's IMC Rating, which has been totally misrepresented to the rest of Europe by vested interests pursuing their own imperatives. Some 25,000 UK pilots have taken the IMC Rating in the last 27 years. It is a 15-hour flying course which equips pilots to maintain control if they accidentally enter IMC and to get their aircraft safely back onto the ground. It confers no rights to file IFR, no extra access to airspace, and no additional privileges beyond the PPL apart from absolving the holder from the UK requirement to remain in sight of the ground. "
Well worth repeating from IAOPA - my bold.