FUEL PROTESTS ARE COMING





Britain is bracing itself for a week of disruption, as fuel protesters threaten refinery demonstrations and motorway go-slows.

Campaigners from the Fuel Lobby have given government ministers three days to meet them to discuss their grievances or face protests on Wednesday.


According to a report in the Independent On Sunday, ministers have already met in secret to discuss a plan to ration petrol should prices continue to rise.

Anger is rising over the price of petrol at the pumps, which has reached £1 a litre after rising more than 20% in recent months and threatens to be forced higher by the disruption caused to the US oil industry by Hurricane Katrina.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown issued a plea to oil-producing countries to step up supplies in order to calm the current price spike.

But he and other EU finance ministers meeting in Manchester stopped short of offering the kind of tax cuts on fuel which demonstrators are demanding.

Mr Brown - who will discuss the oil crisis in a speech to the TUC on Tuesday - poured cold water on hopes of direct Government action to bring down prices, insisting that they were "a global problem which requires global solutions".

He urged oil producers to recognise their "common interest" in ensuring sufficient supplies reach the market to keep prices down.

Fuel Lobby spokesman Andrew Spence said it would have been "common sense" for EU ministers to have agreed fuel tax cuts to ease the burden on motorists and hauliers, rather than relying on the oil-producing states to solve their problems.

He said he had been contacted by truckers in France and Spain who were planning their own protests in sympathy with Wednesday's demonstrations in the UK.

But he played down expectations of refinery blockades of the kind which brought Britain to a standstill in 2000.

"I strongly urge against blockades," he said. "We want peaceful protests. We are going to maintain a presence, but we will not be stopping supplies going in or going out.

"It should not be disruptive. I can't say strenuously enough that people should not be panic-buying."

It is understood that protests are planned at refinery gates for 12 hours from 6am.

Meanwhile, the South Wales Hauliers Association is reported to be planning a blockade of the M4, with the aim of bringing the road to a standstill.

Legislation introduced since the 2000 protests has given ministers and police significant new powers to deal with demonstrations which threaten to disrupt the supply of fuel to motorists and industry.

Chancellor Gordon Brown blamed the oil-producing countries of OPEC for the petrol crisis.

Denouncing OPEC as a "cartel" which had failed to respond quickly enough to the rising demand for oil from China, Mr Brown made clear that he wanted to see action by the end of this month to increase supplies and relieve pressure on prices.

Petrol being charged at 1.07 per ltr in Wolverhampton, could that be the highest in the country.

Apparently it's because of the oil disputes in the U.S

They don't make protests like they used to. The one in 2000 was the last great prostest to take place in this country.

I remember it very well. The excitement, the chaos andthe disruption.The public loved it.

The present one hardly raised an eyebrow.