14.12.07 Protesters to fire “warning shot” to the government.
Do you support the fuel protests?
Transaction 2007, the group behind the fuel protests taking place around the country tomorrow, have said that the protests are aiming to “fire a warning shot to the government.” David Handley, spokesperson for group, warned, “it's our intention to come back in January and let's put it like this, it won't be quite as peaceful as it's going to be tomorrow.”
He continued: “we have got contingency plans for where the next stage of this will go. I'm obviously not going to discuss that because the next element has got to be a surprise. That's the only way that you'll have the impact with government to make them realise that you mean business.”
Handley hopes the protests will show politicians how angry motorists are at rising fuel prices. Transaction 2007 blame the current tax system, whereby duty and VAT are added the price of petrol. He said: “we have not got an issue with tax if tax is totally transparent. It's got to be fair, it's got to be shown that the money that's drawn from the revenue from fuel, should be used to create a better infrastructure, better investment in transport and not used to prop up the inefficient management of the cash flow from government.”
The protests tomorrow will start at 10am at fuel refineries and depots across the country, including those in Manchester, Southampton, Liverpool, Essex, Cardiff, and Lincolnshire. Despite the threat of further, potentially more disruptive action early next year, Handley maintains that tomorrow's action will be peaceful. Transaction 2007 were involved in the fuel protests in 2000, where lorry drivers blockaded refineries, leading to nationwide fuel shortages. But Handley maintained: “we were accused last time by a lot of people who didn't want to take part of not doing it in the correct manner. This time we're doing it in the correct way. We're sending a message in a peaceful form, but if people don't address that and listen to us then 2000 is likely to happen all over again.”
Early indications from polls and comments on our blog have suggested that whilst motorists are angry at rising fuel prices, opinions are divided as to whether targeting refineries is the best method of protest. In addition, only 183 people have said they will be protesting tomorrow. It has been suggested that it would be better to send a petition to the government or protest in London, because they are responsible for the tax on fuel.
However, Stephen Joseph from the Campaign for Better Transport believes that reducing tax on fuel would be the worst thing the government could do. “It gives motorists the false sense of security that they can continue to drive around in their gas guzzlers. High tax acts as an incentive for motorists to switch to greener alternatives.” He continued, “fuel tax in the UK is not drastically higher than the rest of Europe. We are now only around 1% higher than countries such as Germany, France and the Netherlands.”
So are we paying too much in tax on our fuel in the UK? Should we ensure that all our tax gets spent on motoring? Or should we continue to tax at the current rate to encourage greener alternatives?
Your Comments
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In a way I do agree with all the protests, but the other side of it you are stopping the world from moving. As like all the business and self employed people who work to surport their families.
If you do what you did in 2000 then once again those families go without money to surport their families. I do agree though that the fuel price's are getting stupid now though, I'm on benefit and running a car is hard enough with all the insurance and tax and MOT, so with the fuel prices going up it get's hard for my family to get around, especially when my parent in-laws live 130 miles away from us. But surely there has got to be a better option then stopping the fuel trucks from getting out.
The Government promised in 1997 " to not increase taxes" thats all they HAVE done, in my opinion a one day boycot of purchasing petrol or Diesal throughout the country would make this country realise that WE are all being victimised by all manner of Taxes, mostly to pay for Wars that nobody wanted, the likes of Blair and Brown should be shunned by the British Public for the way they have deceived us all. They are going ahead with a new Trident Fleet at a cost of approximately 10 Billion Pounds, Nuclear Weapons...yet other countries such as Iraq and Iran are not allowed them, they need to ditch these proposals and spend that money on more needy causes ie., NHS, Schools, and decent wage rises for Police, and other public sector jobs, and stop sending aid to other countries whilst we are slowly returning to the dark ages.....i wont be voting for any political party to be ruled by brussells.
The problem with taxing fuel to drive people off the roads is that it simply doesn't work. There are no viable alternatives to a car for the majority of drivers. It' simply another cost that we have to bear, because we are forced to by government.
There should be cheap and efficient public transport provided,as an alternative at a subsidised cost, but all the time fuel tax is used merely as another means of raising money, instead of being spent on roads and transport , people will have to use their cars to get where they want when they want.