We’ll bring Britain to standstill warn truckers

Ahead of talks between unions and fuel distributors this week, fuel lobby leaders say they have formed an alliance with the tanker drivers and plan to blockade refineries and cause gridlock on motorways to stop soldiers moving fuel around the UK.

The truckers are led by farmer and haulier Andrew Spence, who was instrumental in the blockades in 2000, which led to 3,000 petrol stations running out of fuel.

Government ministers lined up yesterday to claim the country was “now better prepared for a strike”, but the father-of three, who runs a mixed farm and plant hire company in Consett, County Durham, said the alliance could bring the Government down.

He said: “We have been in negotiations with the tanker drivers since 2000 and have been aware of their grievances for some time.

“We have said to them we may have to stand beside them in any protest. We are better organised than we were in 2000. This time we will bring the Government down.”

He said the action was a “last resort” because hauliers and farmers were going bust: “It just cannot go on. If it does, we’ll be back to the days of Steptoe and Son and I’ll be delivering to Tesco and Asda in a horse and cart, which right now does not seem such a poor option.

“When you are put in a corner, what can you do? We are in that corner and we are going to come out and fight.”

Fair Fuel UK founder and former haulier Peter Carroll said the past few days “had frightened the socks off politicians”. The campaign doesn’t support blockades, but Mr Carroll said the Government was “refusing at their peril to enter a dialogue”.

But despite the “enormous anger” felt about fuel prices – which he said equated to a rise of 16p a gallon in August – Mr Carroll said he didn’t believe the public would back disruption.

He said: “Many, many truckers do feel like him but one day without fuel for a trucking firm with 20 vehicles could cost £25,000 to £30,000 and I think this would put hundreds of businesses out of business. I don’t disagree with what they are fighting for, I disagree with the way they are waging the war.”

Brigg and Goole Tory MP Andrew Percy said the Government needed to “act fast” and commission a “root and branch” study to find out what impact price rises have on jobs.

He said: “The Government has to wake up and face the fact that fuel is killing a lot of people, particularly in a constituency like mine where people earn below the national average and many below the regional average but have to drive everywhere, to work and to get the kids to school.”

Meanwhile, Diane Hill, 46, from Acomb, York, remains critically ill in the specialist burns unit at Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield after suffering 40 per cent burns as she poured fuel into a jug.

Despite the intense criticism since Francis Maude’s now infamous “fill up your jerry cans” advice, Foreign Secretary William Hague insisted Ministers had done “absolutely the right thing to urge people to take sensible precautions”.

Unite has ruled out strikes over Easter and the Government has issued new advice telling motorists there is “no urgency” to top up tanks.

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said the Government’s “posturing” was scuppering chances for an end to the dispute. He added: “Is it acting as an honest broker, or is it spoiling for a fight in order to get itself out of the political hole its class-focused economic mismanagement has put it in?

The AA said panic buying had “dramatically dropped”.