British consumers will have more time to return an item bought online, by phone or at home under a package of tougher rights that come into force on Friday.

In what is being hailed as the biggest shakeup of consumer protection laws in a generation, shoppers will be given 14 days, rather than the current seven, to return an item. They will also no longer be forced to pay premium rate phone numbers when telephoning retailers’ customer service phone lines about something they have bought. Retailers will now have to offer a number that is charged at standard call rates.

The Consumer Rights Directive will apply in all 28 EU member states from Friday. The new legislation aims to clarify information rights and cancellation rights, and to prohibit some hidden cost practices when consumers buy certain goods and services.

“The Consumer Rights Directive will give people greater protection against rogue traders and strengthen their rights when shopping online,” said Which? executive director, Richard Lloyd. “These changes, coupled with the new consumer bill of rights, will give people more power to challenge bad practice.”

In the UK the directive is being implemented through the Consumer Contracts Regulations and replaces the Distance Selling Regulations and Doorstep Selling Regulations. They are separate from the consumer rights bill – which contains further protective measures – currently going through parliament.

Further changes in the new regulations include a ban on “pre-ticked” boxes for payment of additional services, such as travel insurance, when buying a holiday, and on excessive “administrative” credit and debit card surcharges on flights and concert bookings. However, some contracts are excluded from the scope of the new regulations – notably financial services, package travel and gambling.

Consumer minister Jenny Willott said: “What we want to see are empowered, savvy shoppers who know their rights, look around for the best deals and drive competition.”

Justin Edgar of London law firm Harbottle & Lewis added: “The regulations herald the beginning of what it is expected to be biggest shake-up of consumer protection laws in a generation. They will put considerable new responsibilities on traders in relation to just about everything in the business to consumer relationship..”

Karlesha Thurman wasn’t looking for controversy when she posted a picture of herself breastfeeding at her graduation ceremony on Facebook. “I found out I was pregnant [in] my last year of college,” the 25-year-old American wrote. “She was my motivation to keep going, so me receiving my BA was OUR moment.”

Nevertheless after the image went viral, Thurman faced an onslaught of sexist criticism. Commenters bemoaned her “inappropriate” behaviour; others indulged in some misogynistic name-calling. “Nobody told her to hoe around in 3rd period She should’ve been doing her work & maybe she wouldn’t be breastfeeding during her graduation”, offered one charming Twitter user.

Thurman’s online abuse is the latest in a seemingly never-ending stream of mother-shaming media stories. From Instagram guidelines that censor breastfeeding images to UK-wide “nurse-ins” responding to a mother being called a “tramp”, there is barely a week that goes by without a story of someone being told to breastfeed in the toilets.

For some, the media are simply getting their nursing bras in a knot over nothing. Emma Pickett of the Association of Breastfeeding Mothers thinks that for the vast majority, breastfeeding in public is nothing unusual: “Most people see a photo like Karlesha’s and think, ‘lovely’ or nothing at all, and look at the cat picture that comes next on their feed.”

I breastfed my eight-month-old son in a cafe while writing this piece and received only positive comments about my capacity to multitask. While I accept that most people don’t suffer serious abuse for breastfeeding, there are strong arguments for why stories like Thurman’s shouldn’t be brushed aside. As Marcia Lord, vice-chair of Doula UK, explains: “If we tolerate this we are perpetuating the myth that women using their breasts for something other than the male gaze is somehow disgusting. Women are increasingly looking for their breastfeeding support online but often come across stigma and condemnation instead.”

This has to be bad news for new mothers, the majority of whom want to breastfeed. Yet with UK rates falling for the first time in 10 years, confusion about whether it’s OK to feed your baby outside of a toilet stall cannot be helping matters. This is particularly true for young mothers for whom social pressures contribute to low breastfeeding rates. African American women such as Thurman are also less likely to breastfeed, though in the UK statistics suggest that black and Asian mothers have the highest breastfeeding rates.

Damaging as this might be for breastfeeding, the issue goes far beyond the frankly boring-by-now breastfeeding debate. It really doesn’t matter to me how a woman chooses to feed her baby as long as she is well informed, well supported and happy with her decision, which sadly we know many women are not.

The shaming and abuse of women on and offline, the ridiculing of their choices, the commentary on their bodies and the infringement of their basic human rights is, of course, a much bigger problem. That breastfeeding mothers, simply going about their daily business with a hungry infant in tow, can be at the sharp end of this is indicative of the scale of this wider issue.

It is for this very reason that Twitter-user @ish_chel polices the social networking site engaging with those who mother-shame. While reading her conversations isn’t good for the blood pressure, she is compelled to stand up for those invisible mothers, as she believes “women need to feel that they won’t be attacked when they are responding to their baby’s most basic needs”.

This isn’t a breastfeeding problem. It is an issue that feminists need to take up, especially those who haven’t yet engaged with the inequalities women face when they become mothers.

In the meantime, I am about to feed my baby in public again. It’s not quite aTalullah Willis-style topless demonstration, but while there are still people who don’t get the irony in Sparrow Folk’s Ruin Your Day With Tits, I reckon I can add protester to my CV.

There is, between you and us continental Europeans, a disagreement which is turning ugly. Your immense history justifies a limitless admiration for you. You were the inventors of democracy and of human rights, you dominated the world for centuries, first ruling the oceans and after that the world of finance. And when apocalypse threatened, your courage and tenacity – you held on long, American and Russian help arriving late in the day – saved our honour and freedom.

We know this and we have never shied away from saying, including in this commemorative week, that we owe you an immense debt. This should not, however, allow you to treat us with contempt and double-dealing.

You do not like Europe – that is your right and it is understandable. You nevertheless joined 41 years ago, but on a misunderstanding. You never shared the true meaning of the project which Winston Churchill, speaking on your behalf, set out in Zurich in 1946 with his incredible words: “We must build a kind of United States of Europe … Great Britain, the British Commonwealth of Nations, mighty America – and, I trust, Soviet Russia … must be the friends and sponsors of the new Europe and must champion its right to live.”

Were you not listening? These were the thoughts of a giant, shared by another giant, Charles de Gaulle.

You wanted trade, and you thought about nothing else. With President de Gaulle gone, you were able to join. But from this point you never, ever allowed even the smallest step towards greater integration, or even the smallest expansion of genuinely joint decisions.

The European community did trade, which suited you, because it defined itself as an economic community, but for those things that should be at the very heart of an economy – taxation, dispute settlement law, social policy – you demanded and imposed the continuation of unanimous decision-making. You wanted paralysis. So many neighbouring countries applauded and envied our achievements and wanted to join. You supported each enlargement; we did too, even though we knew it would dilute the community. But you never allowed the slightest deepening of the union. Europe remained bogged down and badly run, an economic giant, a political dwarf.

Eventually the size and success of the European community meant that it made little sense for it to be involved only in the economic aspects of our shared lives. Diplomacy, defence, justice were all raised. You succeeded in limiting joint political actions to a few narrowly defined circumstances and instances.

Thanks to you, the Maastricht treaty was a failure and only narrowly voted through. You did not have to do much to ensure that the Amsterdam and Nice treaties and the constitutional convention would also be flops because they changed little. Paralysis was guaranteed, because you had already got what you wanted. But you had to make things worse. When you didn’t like the agreed rules, you tore them up by seeking derogations, “I want my money back” agreements such as the British budget rebate, and eventually the right to opt out of policies altogether when they did not suit you.

But your demands became even more outrageous. Amid the paralysis and growing anger the continental desire grew for stronger and more powerful leaders.

The nationalities of the Belgian Jean-Luc Dehaene and the Luxembourger Jean-Claude Juncker could not have bothered you, it was enough that they were federalist in outlook, had strong voices and would not be easily pushed around. Two vetoes in 10 years, that takes some nerve. You dared to do it.

Europe is dying from it. The most recent elections have confirmed this. Even the euro, the only policy that you could not block, yet whose rules you were involved in writing, and which therefore bear your influence, remains weak and suffers from the lack of oversight that you were able to make sure would prevail across the EU.

I know, you are not completely alone in this. The refusal to recognise a common European interest, always putting the national interest first – you reintroduced these ideas and made them contagious. Nobody is perfect. Acknowledge at least that you deserve the prize.

Out of this disaster and ahead of the European elections, the tenacious among us managed to inject more democracy into the rules. So it was agreed that the majority in the European parliament would choose the European commission presidency. It hardly changes the essence, but it is a start, a way to begin restoring public interest and engagement. Personally, I voted for Martin Schulz as it would trouble me to see somebody with a monetarist outlook at the head of the commission. But the people have spoken. It may be relative, but there is a majority and its leader is Jean-Claude Juncker, a bold and courageous federalist. Democracy demands that he become the president of the European commission. But you want to prevent this. You want to break the process by which a more democratic Europe could emerge. You are stopping Europe finding the democratic force and legitimacy that it needs. A leader picked in these circumstances will be weakened. But this is what you want. Without internal democracy Europe is unworthy, and is in the process of dying. And you are sending us back to that Europe, you despise us so much. What right do you have? And beware, this contempt will backfire on you. You will eventually be right.

Now you pretend to want to exit; the majority of your people are in no doubt about it. But you have a banking interest in remaining to capitalise on the disorder that you have helped to create.

So go before you wreck everything.

There was a time when being British was synonymous with elegance. Let us rebuild Europe. Regain your elegance and you will regain our esteem.

This article was published in Le Monde on 5 June 2014