News: FairFuelUK campaign demands fairness to motorists in air quality legislation

On Wednesday, at 8am – 13th Sept 2017 – FairFuelUK launches a Crowd Justice Funding Campaign to raise funds for a 2-part legal challenge:

1. To convince the Mayor of London to reverse the implementation of his cash grabbing unwarranted ‘T-Charge’ on drivers.
2. To get the Prime Minister and Defra to set up an Independent Public Inquiry to fairly investigate other more effective ways to improve Air Quality in all our UK Cities instead of tax hikes.

• FairFuelUK believes, as do millions of drivers, Sadiq Khan’s decision to implement an unnecessary T-Charge on owners of older diesel and petrol vehicles was unlawful and unfair.
• FairFuelUK is advised that the Mayor has acted outside the scope of his lawful powers and because of these reasons, the decision was irrational.
• Sadiq Khan also appears to have ignored his power to hold a full independent Public Inquiry on this issue before making his tax raising decision.
• FairFuelUK calls for a full and independent Public Inquiry into all aspects of policies past, present and future, to improve air quality fairly in London and all cities across the UK.
• FairFuelUK calls for effective action and to use highly effective low cost simple solutions that are available now.
• These alternative solutions must be examined in detail by a full independent Public Inquiry. With the aim to legally set in place the best methods to improve air quality, instead of resorting to political opportunistic tax hikes on hard working drivers.

Legal Process: FairFuelUK has appointed the Law Firm, Howe & Co to represent the campaign’s legal challenge. A judicial review will be called for, but it is recognised that the 90-day deadline to initiate this process has passed. Barristers have advised FairFuelUK as follows: “There are strong arguments in favour of the Court taking an exceptional course and agreeing to extend time in this case. There are three factors in particular. Firstly, the huge public importance of the case, and the unfairness involved in a charging system that will inevitably penalise the poorer motorists in society. Secondly, the legal opinion’s preliminary view regarding the strength of your prospective claim. Thirdly, the fact that the new charging system is not yet in place.”

Quentin Willson, TV Broadcaster, Motoring Journalist and Lead Spokesman of FairFuelUK said: “London’s Mayor, Sadiq Kahn, is pursuing his own heroic agenda to introduce a new Toxic Tax, Low Emission Zones and vehicle bans based on flawed health and emissions data. Even Transport for London says these initiatives will have a ‘negligible’ benefit on the city’s air quality. Kahn’s personal crusade is just another example of liberal-leaning politicians and ministers ignoring empirical evidence and scoring political points to the detriment of millions of hard-working drivers who have no other choice.”

Howard Cox, Founder of the FairFuelUK Campaign said: “Motoring organisations and manufacturers have been deafening by their silence, letting Mr Khan ride roughshod over hard working drivers, massively devaluing their prized possessions by inflicting an idealistic, ineffective and unwarranted tax hike. Worse still, the Mayor of London has chosen to punish motorists over proven and much more effective ways to lower emissions. It’s purely a quick crash grab of the most dishonest of proportions. If the Mayor of London is serious about reducing emissions, why has he ignored more effective available proven solutions to improve air quality in favour of a punitive new tax on drivers?”

Diesel drivers in the UK are already the highest taxed in the world with petrol, being third in global ranking? UK diesel drivers are punitively taxed more than for example, those motorists in Germany, France, Greece and other EU economies. These nations all subsidise diesel with lower taxation compared to their petrol levies. Amazingly Greek diesel drivers pay 25p less than petrol at the pumps. Waging war on hard working diesel drivers is crass, ill thought out and deceitful. Out of touch myopic politicians will add more misery to UK drivers who already pay more for diesel than petrol. No other nation worldwide does that to its people.

So, any additional tax hike masked under a Green label will be unfair and pointless. NOx levels are already falling in our cities without fleecing motorists with another quick cash grab planned by the London Mayor. Poor policy based on emotion is driving political decisions with Ministers and Sadiq Khan ignoring low emission alternatives, such as retrofitting, bulk fuel additives and replacing bus fleets. These are instant solutions proven not to hurt the economy or drivers.

The crowd funding will be administered by Crowd Justice Funding. From 8am on Wednesday, 13th September, the crowd fund raising page and the full background information will available at this link: https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/stop-toxic-taxes/

• Website: https://www.fairfueluk.com
• email: campaign@fairfueluk.com
• Contact and Media: Howard Cox 07515 421611
• FairFuelUK Office, 1 Rammell Mews, Cranbrook, Kent TN17 3BQ. UK
• CrowdJustice Funding Page : https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/stop-toxic-taxes/