Popular or populist?
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It's bluff and counter-bluff. Having threatened blockading hauliers with having their 0-licences removed it now appears that the government can't do it—or at least not until zoot. By then the fuel protest could be all over (or all over Britain).
Home Secretary Jack Straw has also persuaded the oil companies, police and T&G to sign a memorandum of understanding to ensure fuel supplies will get through. Only no-one knows if it's legally binding. Then there are the drivers who've received summonses arising out of the protest. But it's hard to see how they can be prosecuted if they were escorted by police patrol cars at the time.
Following a recent rally of hauliers and farmers the organisers declared they have a plan if the government doesn't act before the 6o-day deadline, and that The League of Housewives is on their side (though what on earth it's got to do with them is beyond us).
This isn't a battle about what housewives, motorists or old-age pensioners pay for their fuel. It's about truck operators paying a disproportionate amount of duty of diesel used in the course of their essential business—pure and simple. The more the ranks of protesting hauliers are swelled by every Tom, Dick and Harry (with their own political agendas) the more their message is diluted. Dropping the essential user rebate was a big mistake. The government has lost a get-out and hauliers a focus. And right now the industry needs a real focus to its protest. If it doesn't have concrete proposals to end the deadlock the government might just think it's bluffing. And that would be a disaster for everyone.