David Cameron chairs Urgent Meeting on Fuel Strike

British Prime Minister David Cameron is to chair a meeting of Cobra to discuss ways to tackle any potential disruption caused by fuel tanker drivers’ strike.

Cameron is to lead a crisis response committee Wednesday afternoon to come up with ways to limit the effects of the industrial action planned by the country’s fuel tanker drivers. 

On Monday, fuel tanker drivers voted for strike action to express their anger over their working conditions and health and safety regulations. 

Unite, the largest trade union in Britain, warned that the action could deplete petrol stocks within 48 hours while the Automobile Association said the panic caused by the potential strike would cause a 2 or 3 pence increase in the price of petrol. 

The strike action could effectively paralyze Britain’s transport system as it could close up to 7,900 petrol stations across Britain. 

Earlier this week, the British government announced that it was drawing up contingency plans to deploy army soldiers on streets and ask businesses for tankers to be driven by soldiers. However, the contingency plans might not yield the desired results as soldiers need at least eight days of training to be able to drive the tankers and Unite has not set a date for the strike. 

The opposition Labor party has ridiculed the Cobra meeting, saying Cameron is trying to divert the public’s attention away from the cash-for-access scandal after revelations were made about cabinet ministers’ wining and dining multi-millionaire Tory donors. 

“Cobra is supposed to meet to deal with a national crisis – not to help a prime minister distract attention away from a political crisis,” said Shadow Cabinet Office Minister Michael Dugher, Sky News reported.