Der von der am höchsten befragten britischen Partei organisierte Treibstoffprotest kam nicht zustande. Und unsere kritische Infrastruktur wurde von Leuten blockiert, die über eine Facebook-Gruppe organisiert waren. Ich weiß, dass hier eine starke Anti-Regierungs-Stimmung herrscht, aber was hat diesen Protest hier so stark gemacht?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/reform-uk-fuel-protest-b2965664.html
Von Diligent-Musician590
18 Kommentare
A stronger farmers‘ lobby in Ireland is one thing that springs to mind.
It wasn’t a blatant party political stunt here. There’s no point in trying to mobilise Reform voters on an early Monday morning about the price of petrol.
Ireland is small enough that a self organised group can mass to blockade critical infrastructure. A larger country like the UK is much more difficult as you need a lot more people to cause equivalent disruption. The reason they were so long lived is that they initially had the mass to be disruptive and that generated its own momentum.
In any case the fuel protests were about a lot more than fuel. The UK is more urbanised and there isn’t the same Dublin/rural tension that exists. In the UK it’s London Vs the rest which includes lots of very large urban areas.
I would really like to know the numbers involved in our protests too tbh. It seemed like hundreds of people rather than thousands. It certainly didn’t seem to be a mass movement, though it did enjoy majority support.
I passed one of the blockades in the M50 on day 3 or 4 and it appeared to be about a dozen vehicles.
Still far more substantial than what appears to have happened in the UK though.
The Gardai.
Once blockaders realised they had free reign they did whatever they wanted.
A few things combined. Rural communities here are genuinely squeezed – fuel costs hit proportionally harder when you’re 40km from the nearest town and the public transport option is one bus a week. But also, Ireland doesn’t have a mainstream political outlet for that anger the way the UK does with Reform. In the UK, people furious about fuel costs can vote Reform and feel like they’ve done something. Here, that anger has nowhere formal to go so it goes straight to direct action. Facebook farming groups are remarkably well organised and the social trust between rural neighbours is stronger than outsiders expect.
The Brits couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery
Grassroots movements will always mobilise people more effectively than manufactured ones. The Irish protests also evolved naturally from a normal protest into a blockade. People got swept up in it without time to consider that they could be arrested or jailed for taking part.
Ireland’s infrastructure was just easier to block and has fewer contingencies.
The Irish fuel protests occured rapidly and caught security forces off-guard. The blockade was illegal and would have been met with more force and pre-emptive action had they more time to prepare. Announcing that you’re going to organise an illegal protest that will get participants arrested ahead of time probably isn’t the brightest idea.
It primarily involved two professions that can organise their days to have time to attend a protest; and was organised from the ground up, rather than from the top down. People weren’t being called out to attend – they wanted to attend in the first place.
Also, it’s worth mentioning that the penetration rate of Facebook in Ireland is absolutely massive at over 80%. I’ve mentioned before that the fuel protest were the second mass-protest (Dublin riot) that came from Social Media and of which the Government and Gardaí seem to have been oblivious about before it happened.
Was it not the spontaneity of the blockade? The protests themselves had already begun before a smaller cohort opted to blockade the fuel depots. I know that was organised, but I’m assuming it took most by surprise, and it just escalated from there.
We have a high number of morons who believe every bit of shite on Facebook
Our two tiered policing and governance. For all the excuse making of it being seemingly impossible to remove them and ‚the sheer scale‘ of the protests, once they actually had the appetite to do so it was broken up quickly and easily.
Same reason why Palestine protesters blocking the port tunnel were able to be [cleared by force within hours](https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/garda-public-order-unit-physically-remove-gaza-protesters-blocking-dublin-port-amid-major-traffic-disruption/a566437264.html) and a cordon put up that led to [pepper spraying and arrests for those who tried to break it.](https://www.rte.ie/news/dublin/2025/1004/1536847-two-arrested-after-protest-near-dublins-port-tunnel/) Same reason why much larger scale left wing protests have been broken up by force very quickly in the past, [like the student ones during the recession](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K3LTQGXTx4Y&t=5s&pp=ygUnU3R1ZGVudCBwcm90ZXN0IER1YmxpbiBwb2xpY2UgYnJ1dGFsaXR5). Same reason why efforts to occupy the department of finance by those students were [forcibly removed almost instantly](https://www.rte.ie/news/2010/1103/137628-education/), while farmers were allowed occupy department of agriculture buildings [for a full month](https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2026/0302/1561115-bord-bia-protest/) earlier this year, until they decided of their own volition to end it. [Housing protesters get arrested by force quicker, and physically attacked), for even occupying derelict buildings.](https://m.independent.ie/news/gardai-criticised-after-protesters-removed-from-derelict-dublin-building/37310265.html) Same reason why the far right were allowed obstruct traffic in Dublin for weeks/months on end and set homeless tents on fire at will while our minister of justice encouraged a [„hands off the far right“](https://www.thetimes.com/world/ireland-world/article/helen-mcentee-backs-hands-off-policing-of-the-far-right-kf2lzbcg8) policy that eventually led to riots and Dublin city centre being set alight due how emboldened they became.
Who you are very much determines how you are allowed to protest in this country.
ours came at a crunch point. lads were near the point of being out of business.
poverty or the threat of it makes people desperate
a lot of the commentary seems to ignore the sheer scale of the crisis we were looking at, green diesel had doubled in price for a sector that couldn’t up its prices to match because the customers ie farmers, builders etc weren’t going to suddenly start paying the ag hire and hauliers double
just taking the ag contractors, we’re coming into their busiest time of the year but farm incomes are relatively fixed so they simply couldn’t pass on the increased cost to the farmers without farmers incomes some how increasing in line with it when to cancel out the negative impact on them
Grassroots.
So when lads are talking about doing it you know the lads and can trust them to show rather then some random person talking shite in Mayo while you’re in Cork about meeting in Dublin.
Not associated with a party.
You know what people dislike more then being forgotten by politicians, being a pawn for another politicians.
Also Reform is a bit of an „all talk, no action“ party.
Big scale of agricultural community buy in, a lot of trucks and tractors, and probably the most laid back police force in the world. The roads and infrastructure were blocked for several days without any reaction. That is not the usual response in most countries. If you blocked critical infrastructure you’d be moved on and it’s what happened in the North too – the PSNI were in very rapidly before it bedded in.
You saw the same with the Dublin riots a few years ago. The Gardaí effectively lost control of the situation in a way that just wouldn’t have been allowed in the UK.
Think of the general level of discourse in Ireland:
– Opposition politicians tell people their lives are awful and uniquely hard;
– They support the protests;
– The media is generally quite neutral towards the protests (if not the organisers);
– The media strongly opposes Garda intervention whenever it happens (then moans when they don’t intervene against protests afterwards).
Now throw in the fact that social media feeds even more disinformation to people whilst allowing them to organise.
Finally, remember that this wasn’t a large number of people protesting, it was effective because it’s easy to blockade something with a tractor.
One other thing worth noting was the massive overreaction to Leo Varadkar’s largely accurate comments about urban Ireland funding the country. Ultimately Ireland exists because Dublin pays for it, and much of the country is extremely resentful about that and becoming quite hostile to it. This is very akin to America where the poorest, shittest parts of America generally vote Republican because they feel left behind.
The UK public recognised it for the far right shitshow that it was but we had the left wing parties piling in with support for it here lending it an air of legitimacy that it never should have had given how utterly moronic the whole thing was.
Believe it or not, UK is far down the road of draconian semi-authortarian policing in regards to civil disobedience, I’ll say that first
But also
-our farmers are more organised
-we’re far more rural than any other European nation so they have more a homebase to garner support
-hualiers far more corporate in England than small local based companies and contractors
-smaller country, less infrastructure and easy to block key energy sector points , so far more