Farmers have threatened to block Britain’s roads unless Rachel Reeves brings down fuel costs, echoing similar protests in Ireland that have crippled the country, leading Dublin to send in the army. The Telegraph has the story.
Farmers For Action, a campaign group, has warned Ministers of protests unless the Chancellor cuts tax on red diesel used for tractors.
Similar protests in Ireland crippled the country last week, forcing Dublin to send in the army.
William Taylor, Farmers For Action co-ordinator, said his organisation had been asked to consider “UK-wide tax and fuel protests”.
He said: “There is huge concern that current policies are failing to address the pressures facing key sectors of the UK economy.”
The threat of protests will add to pressure on Reeves to announce support for drivers on fuel costs. Ireland and Germany both announced tax cuts on Monday.
Farmers For Action was instrumental in organising protests against Reeves’s family farm tax.
The group wants the Chancellor to cut the price of red diesel, which has soared since war broke out in Iran. It is currently as high as 135p per litre, up from 60p per litre before the war.
Each litre of red diesel faces tax of more than 10p per litre. The Government is poised to raise this by a over a penny by the end of the year.
Taylor, who farms in Northern Ireland, said: “There is no common sense to this tax rise, absolutely none.”
He added that “the Government would do well to remember what happened last time”, a reference to protests in 2000 when farmers blockaded six of the country’s largest refineries.
Farmers For Action warned that those protests “brought [the country] to a standstill for five days until government listened – a lot was learnt”.
Howard Cox, the founder of the campaign group FairFuelUK, told the Telegraph: “I am in discussions with farmers and others to hold fuel protests in London and other places as drivers and businesses are sick to death of being used as Labour’s cash cows.
“I have always been against direct action, but I am being bombarded with requests to jointly lead protests in the next few weeks.”
Red diesel and the so-called white diesel available at pumps are the same but the former is chemically dyed to distinguish it for farm use. In the UK, red diesel is taxed at only a fifth of the rate of road fuel.
Motorists are also increasingly frustrated by petrol and diesel costs. On Monday, Fair Fuel UK accused the Chancellor of “doing nothing to help millions of motorists”.
Worth reading in full.
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The farmer who wrote that sign on his tractor – who are you? I want to buy you a pint. Even though a print probably costs £8.
Economics 101: all resources are scarce and must be rationed somehow according to degree of scarcity.
The free market rationing mechanism is price determined by supply and demand.High prices mean there is a supply problem, and they ration demand. The alternative – aside mandated rationing – is keep prices the same or lower and then run out. Not much benefit to cheap fuel if there is none.
Do people not learn? Why did the Country run out of lavatory paper during the COVID scam? Because retailers kept the price the same so people were buying them by the trolley load. Had they applied significant price increases people would have bought only what they really needed. But, but, but, turn poor people wouldn’t be able to,afford to wipe their arses. Boo hoo. They don’t anyway.
So farmers: I sympathise. Supposing you get your lower cost fuel… where are you going to get it when the petrol stations run dry which they will?
Irish filling stations are empty – lowering prices won’t fill them up.
The reason for the current State of affairs is in the 1970s we had 19 oil refineries, by the start of the 21st… Read more »
The protests in Ireland have been going on for well over one week. I cannot see anything in the MSM on it. From the accounts on X it appears to be growing? The government has pledged 500 million to deal with fuel prices? Garda personnel called in sick so they did not have to deal with protesters? Vote of no confidence in the government? What is actually going on?
I heard an interview with one of the leaders of the tractors protests in Ireland on the excellent Mike Graham show. The Government fuel taxes are at an eye watering 60%! It was a distressing interview as there is increasingly violent methods being used to ‘suppress’ innocent protesters. He said that they had been in touch with the Canadian truckers who had learned that rather than blockade cities the most effective way to cause disruption was to perform go-slow and stop/start on motorways.
God bless these brave farmers! I truly hope that our Govt will see the actions carried out by other countries and reduce the tax on fuel while this situation goes on.
Best of luck, farmers, in trying to bring your tractors into London to mount a blockade – I think you’ll find Sadiq Khan has already grid-locked our once great capital city.
The best place to go is the fuel depots instead of Londonistan.
Everything lawfully and legally possible should be done to help bring down this terrible government.
With regards farmers, those who produce our food, this government clearly plan to destroy them, but that of course is only one of the many awful policies they are perusing.
Like what exactly?