Labour faces backlash over fuel costs amid claims of ‘punishing motorists’

I worked closely with Robert Jenrick when he was a Treasury Minister, and we have mutual respect for each other and, above all, for the UK’s drivers, being punished by this Labour administration.

I am delighted that he has made this an apolitical protest and has personally invited me, as the founder of the 16-year-old FairFuelUK campaign, to speak at the event.

The Chancellor is not only clueless about stimulating the economy but also completely insensitive to her lack of support for motorists, small businesses, and the logistics industry when they desperately need her fiscal help.

Why does Labour despise motorists so much that it keeps refusing to reduce the cost of driving, a fiscal move that would reduce inflation, increase consumer spending, create jobs and deliver monetary growth in a time of real economic crisis?

With rocketing pump prices due to the Iranian Crisis, FairFuelUK widely predicted in March that inflation would inevitably rise by 0.3% to 3.3%. Our forecast has proven correct.

Since the war started in the Middle East, the extra VAT windfall to the Treasury from soaring pump prices is just short of £300m, and the total paid by drivers to fill up at the pumps, including the double taxation in the same period, has been an extra £1.8 billion.

In the upcoming Autumn Budget, Labour is set to unwind the positive effects of 16 years of fuel-duty freezes by reversing Rishi Sunak’s 2022 5p/litre cut in Fuel Duty and, in 2027, introducing direct road-user charges, which are not only misguided policies but also punitive actions for drivers at a time when many households and small businesses are already squeezed in this cost of living crisis.

The Treasury must wake up now and cut fuel duty, scrap the dishonest double taxation VAT on fuel duty, and announce they will stop their planned 5p increase in the Autumn Budget. And they must do it now!

Other Governments have acted quickly on the Iranian issue (mostly from mid-March onwards) through a mix of supply boosts, tax cuts, price caps, and subsidies to ease the burden on drivers. Yet Chancellor Rachel Reeves continues to wallow in the extra taxes, doing nothing to help the economy and UK drivers.