Here’s a cause to inflame Eurosceptic passions: save our public-spirited regulators from the tyranny of judgments made by bureaucratic overlords in Brussels.

Well, OK, the furious debate over Three-owner CK Hutchison’s attempt to buy O2 hasn’t reached that stage yet. In fact, Alex Chisholm, chief executive of the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), went out of his way to praise the “timely, productive and meaningful interactions” his team has enjoyed with the European commission, which will decide whether the £10bn merger can proceed.

However, Chisholm was clear on what he would like commissioner Margrethe Vestager to conclude. He wants the deal blocked to prevent “long-term damage” to the UK mobile telecoms market. More technically, he wants the remedies to be so severe that the economic logic of the deal would collapse. Only the creation of a commercially viable fourth mobile operator would suffice, thinks the CMA.

Chisholm, oddly, skipped over the detail of the supporting arguments. Never mind, though, because telecoms regulator Ofcom has already supplied them. For months now, Ofcom boss Sharon White has been warning that a Three/O2 combo could leave consumers poorer by reducing the number of UK mobile operators from four to three. Prices have risen in other European countries where four-to-three deals have happened, Ofcom has argued on the basis of detailed data. What’s more, there is little evidence that better infrastructure – the prize deal-doers invariably wave – has materialised. Further, mobile companies have maintained healthy cashflow margins above 12% in the UK even while rolling out 4G technology.

Hutchison, naturally, snorts with resentment at the twin-pronged regulatory assault. The CMA’s letter “can have no legitimate status in the merger control process”, it says, sticking to its argument that side-deals to rent network capacity to Sky, Virgin, Tesco and others will ensure healthy competition.

In practice, however, Hutchison must suspect the game is almost up. Vestager would walk into a political storm if she imposes a deal on the UK that is bitterly opposed by local regulators. At a stroke, she would undermine the credibility of telecoms regulation in the UK.

If the commission does indeed say no in coming weeks (the deadline for a decision is 19 May), we should cheer. Whatever the niceties of single market regulation, Ofcom and the CMA are surely better placed than the commission to judge what is good for competition and consumers in the UK. Brussels should do its legal duty to review the case on its merits. Then it should decide the answer is: no deal.

Big pay at BP

BP’s shareholders – or a few of them, at least – intend to revolt over chief executive Bob Dudley’s $19.6m (£13.7m) pay packet in a loss-making year. Their mood may not be improved by the company’s literal-minded defence. The measures that determine executives’ rewards, says BP, “derive directly from BP’s remuneration policy which was approved by shareholders at the 2014 AGM [annual general meeting] with over 96% of the vote.” Put another way, the owners only have themselves to blame.

From a purely mechanistic point of view, BP has a point. The oil company has tried to strip out factors beyond current executives’ control – like the oil price and the financial fall-out from the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010 – and focus on factors they can affect. BP, investors are told, did splendidly on safety, cashflow and delivery of big projects. That is why Dudley’s annual bonus, for example, was hiked by 38%.

Yet this explanation is far too breezy. BP’s pay committee seems to have forgotten that it is allowed to apply common sense if the pay formula spits out a number that is plainly inflammatory.

For 2015, there were several reasons to hit the overide button. First, profits fell by 50% even when the latest hit from Deepwater Horizon is ignored. Second, BP imposed a pay freeze on all staff in 2015 and is cutting 7,000 jobs. Those cost-saving actions would be swallowed more easily if the boss was also seen to be buckling down for an era of oil at sub-$50 a barrel instead of continuing to enjoy rewards worth 125 times average pay at BP.

The level of revolt at Thurday’s annual meeting probably won’t match the 40% recorded back in 2009. But, as then, the company has shown itself to be tone deaf to the mood outside the boardroom.

Smart move on British Steel

Good luck to Greybull Capital in its purchase of Tata Steel’s UK long products business, a deal that could protect up to 4,400 jobs in Scunthorpe, Teesside and elsewhere. The Greybull crew have also bought the rights to the British Steel name, dormant since 1999, and intend to use it. Smart move: if you’re looking to the government for financial support to help revive operations, requests may be harder to refuse if they are seen to come from British Steel rather than a family investment office.