Challenge: Have the 2000 Fuel Crisis Bring Down Tony Blair

We were learning about this in politics today; how the fuel blockades and Labour's general disinterest for the first few days of the crisis in September 2000 brought Great Britain to its knees; in the end the protest finished threatening that if demands were not met, they would be back on an even larger scale 8 weeks later. In the end, this never really materialised.
More interesting, from a political point of view, is that this was pretty much the only part of Blair's first term where Labour fell behind the Tories in general opinion polls. The challenge is thus; either have Labour and Blair continue to drag in the polls, and (near miraculously!) lose the 2001 election to William Hague's Tories, or have Brown or someone else suddenly close for the kill, and openly challenge Tony Blair for leadership of the Labour Party. From what I can tell, it was a near miracle that the Government only got out of this with the mildest of scratches (they lost a handful of seats in the 2001 general election- The Conservatives made a net gain of one).
And yes, before you ask, I am a Tory and proud! Go.
 
Interesting thread.

IMO I don't think that the Fuel Crisis could bring down Blair on its own. Prior to 11/9/01 he was far too popular with urban voters. For this to work it has to start having a tangible impact on urban areas.

Autumn 2000 brought a number of crisis' that, coupled with the Fuel Crisis, could have made life difficult for the government. Firstly, the Hatfield Rail disaster on 17/10/01 crippled the rail network as signalling systems were inspected nationwide for safety. By this time the Fuel Crisis was over, but a longer one, or even the realisation of the threat to restart after the 8 week gap, would really cause problems.

October and November 2000 saw appauling weather - flooding, rain, unseasonably cold etc. - lack of fuel and adequate transportation could again only add to the problem.

Have the Fuel Crisis drag on during the winter. This impacts on the distribution of farm feeds, and lets say butterflies the arrival of Foot and Mouth Disease to December.

By the New Year you could have a rural revolt on the way.
 
By the New Year you could have a rural revolt on the way.

I don't think this could seriously hamper Blair's support, and if this 'rural revolt' is of the obnoxious Countryside Alliance kind we saw over fox hunting, it might backfire on urban opinion.

Blair simply is too strong for this to unseat at this point, the Tories were spent for the time-being, so either have the Tories get a charismatic leader halfway between Churchill and Cameron with radically different policies or have Blair found covered in children's blood, even then he'd probably only lose a few marginals, the Conservative reputation really was that bad in 2000!
 
Personally, I didn't care about the Fuel Protests. I live in London, the Underground runs on good old fashioned electricity and we're supplied increasingly through the revitalised London Port.

There is only one way for Blair to be smashed by the fuel protests, there were rumours that hauliers were to run the blockades at refineries. Have a few people killed, Blair not apologising (which is contrary to his personality anyway) and a hysterical media where all the press barons are on holiday together and completely uncontactable. More ASB than ATL.
 
What ljofa said really. They didn't "bring Britain to it's knees" anyway. All that happened in practical terms was that fuel was a wee bit short for about a working week, and you had occassional queues at stations. That was it. It came very close to having a real impact, but if it had been worse, then the protestors would have utterly lost public sympathy. (Which, IIRC, was very thin as it was) In consequence they called it all off. They'd made their point, they went home. If Blair had sent the army in and there had been 'scuffles', then I strongly suspect public sympathy would have been overwhelmingly on the side of the army.

The Tories were so far behind that I would regard any 2001 win as pretty much ASB anyway. Under the circumstances that Labour had in the period, overturning a 179 seat majority in one go was just not going to happen. There was absolutely no appetite for it, and the Tories were a shambles under incoherent leadership.
 
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I don't think this could seriously hamper Blair's support, and if this 'rural revolt' is of the obnoxious Countryside Alliance kind we saw over fox hunting, it might backfire on urban opinion.

Blair simply is too strong for this to unseat at this point, the Tories were spent for the time-being, so either have the Tories get a charismatic leader halfway between Churchill and Cameron with radically different policies or have Blair found covered in children's blood, even then he'd probably only lose a few marginals, the Conservative reputation really was that bad in 2000!
The only area where the "rural revolt" may happen is Cumbria, where Countryside Alliance were never particularly strong, and certainly out of touch with the local hunting community. At the time there were local reports of farmers threatening to shoot any DEFRA people that approached their properties, but how much of that was rumour and threat, arther than realistic is anyone's guess.

In the southern shires Countryside Alliance had the clout to harness working class rural support, mainly as many were effectively living in the pockets of the landowners anyway. But I cannot see Countryside Alliance doing anything rebellious as early as 2000.

Any Cumbrian response would be individual, lack co-ordination and ultimately fail. It would be less a rebellion, and more like a "slightly aggressive road block".

To be honest F&M disease was the best thing that happened to Cumbrian farming. It rejuvenated rural life in the district, encouraging farmers to diversify and ploughing investment into rural industry, produce etc.

As for the fuel crisis, I agree, let the hauliers get more aggressive, more "rebellious", and most importantly, more committed in their actions.
 
As for the fuel crisis, I agree, let the hauliers get more aggressive, more "rebellious", and most importantly, more committed in their actions.

Erm, why exactly would this rebound against the government, rather than the protestors?

Wikipedia:

A BBC opinion poll conducted by ICM of 514 people by telephone showed that the public support on 12 September 2000 for the protesters stood at 78% until the possibility of essential services being affected when it fell to 36%.[26]
 
Have food supplies start running out as delivery vehicles cannot make deliveries to the shops or people dont have the fuel to drive to them to shop.

People would soon start complaining, but there would be a strong chance labour spin would trasnfer all the blame to the protesters.
 
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