The government’s authority has been slipping away for months. Now fuel-price protesters have turned that metaphorical loss of control into real chaos by bringing parts of the motorway network to a standstill. The M4, M5 and M62 are among the roads that have been affected.
Fuel-price protests are politically perilous. People tend to blame the disorder they cause on the government, not the protesters. The only time the Blair government looked to be under threat during its sunny first term was when lorry drivers demonstrating against petrol taxes blocked refineries and disrupted fuel supplies in 2000. The gilets jaunes movement in France emerged in 2018 from a fuel-price protest and metamorphosed into a populist campaign that mobilised hostility to the government of President Macron.
