00:00Now for anyone who's been scrolling on Facebook a lot for the past few days, you might be just
00:04as surprised as me to see a completely, normally busy Dartford crossing. That's because across the
00:10last few days there's been a Facebook post that's emerged across multiple groups, whether that's
00:14farming groups or even local groups here in Kent. Let's have a look at it now. It details the specific
00:19locations for a three-day protest starting at 12 today, ranging all the way from the M6 to M74
00:25Scottish border down here at the Dartford crossing. Now, while there aren't actually any tractors,
00:31just cars, motorbikes, vans and lorries as normal here at the Dartford crossing, the sentiment behind
00:36these posts is very real. Farmers have claimed that fuel bills have doubled since the Middle East
00:41conflict and they're calling on the government to show their support by easing the burden on the
00:45fuel duty. Before the Trump war started, we were paying in the region of 70 to 76 pence per litre
00:53for red diesel, which meant my running costs per tractor per day were approximately £140
00:59just on fuel. We're now paying, as of the Trump war, in the region between £125 and £145 per litre,
01:08so we're nearly doubled, so we've gone from £140 a day to nearly £300 a day. And because we do
01:15a lot of
01:15other work, flower mowing for people like Forestry England and what have you, we've got to try and
01:21suck that cost up because I don't want to lose our customers, so to put that price up dramatically is
01:27bad business really. Now back to that original image, some action groups have claimed that this
01:32is pretty much unrelated to any real protests. They say they heard of it through Facebook rather
01:37than the proper channels as well. But there have been protests actually happening in Northern Ireland.
01:42This is again over this fuel and tax. One group who's based there called Farmers for Action had
01:47this to say. They said that Farmers for Action are privileged to be asked by farm organisations
01:51across the UK and accompanied by support from organisations across these islands to consider
01:56a UK-wide tax and fuel protest. Currently, it has been agreed to wait and watch over the coming days,
02:03with reference to fuel prices and government's reactions to the plight that family farmers, SMEs,
02:08the haulage industry and the UK's workforce finds themselves in. So you heard the keyword there being
02:13consider. They're considering it. And I spoke to them on the phone and they told me that they were
02:17actually only needing to wait until the government had responded to these claims. But with the rumours
02:23of this three-day protest on Facebook coming to a halt, it seems that for now, tractors will remain
02:28ploughing the fields rather than blocking the roads. Finn McDermott for KMTV in Dartford.
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