The 2000 fuel protest was a sign of things to come

LOOKING out of my bedroom window this morning I am just glad that I was not where I was seven years ago.

Home is much more preferable than Oil Tanks Road, Ellesmere Port, where a group of lorry drivers and farmers from North Wales and Cheshire and others blockaded the exit of the enormous Shell Oil refinery at Stanlow.

Things were different then, of course. It’s part of history now, but it’s interesting to think back to some of my memories of that time.

I only arrived in Stanlow when the protest had already been running for three days, but being naturally a bit of a rebel I enjoyed the remainder with a touch of adrenalin and gusto which happens but rarely in life.

I remember that incredible sight as Liverpool city centre ground to a halt when all the taxi drivers started blockading the streets.

But when buses started blocking intersections, it was clearly time to go. Driving down on to the Pier Head, on my right was a cavalcade of taxis driving abreast towards me, so I just turned left and escaped towards Runcorn.

Taxis cause chaos in Dale Street, Liverpool, during the 2000 fuel protests

There was always that air of uncertainty as you imagined the police would intervene at any time. But perhaps the highlight was the parade of trucks passing the entrance so that no oil tankers could get out - just as Tony Blair was waiting on the steps of Downing Street to announce that he had sorted it out.

Not that night he didn’t, but by the following morning it was all over.

Reading Alistair Campbell’s book in Smiths (I wouldn’t buy it!), it was interesting to note just how much anxiety it had caused the Prime Minister and why he thought he must introduce the NHS factor. It was always a perpetual concern to the protestors that nobody should lose their loved ones because of a lack of fuel.

Two things still stick out in my mind of this event.

First, the year 2000 probably marked the beginning of the end for British crude oil production. This was the year when production from North Sea oilfields was set to decline and this is just what has happened ever since.

Unfortunately this is now probably the state of world oil production. From now on production of crude oil is unlikely to keep up with demand, especially as consumption is increasing so fast in the Far East.

The other intriguing factor was, I was to meet somebody there who was to send me a Xmas card more than a year later which was to give me the vital clue as to the true source of foot-and-mouth disease in 2001, but it almost certainly happened initially in the previous year.

Perhaps the fuel protest and the later oil convoy to London were to set the scene for the new century.
After two foot-and-mouth epidemics and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in less than 10 years, we might be in for a more turbulent part of our history.