In a digital rerun of the fuel protests of 2000, members of Facebook, the social network website, are planning a massive boycott of petrol stations next week.

More than 144,000 disgruntled motorists have joined the "No Fuel Day - 19 November 2007" group on Facebook, to campaign against the recent surge in the price of petrol. Today, the protest group was adding a new member about every three seconds.

The web-based demonstration follows a sharp hike in fuel costs. Last week the average UK price of unleaded petrol passed £1 a litre for the first time, according to Catalist, the market researcher.

Motorists have already proven a vocal constituency in the nascent era of e-democracy. More than a million signed a Downing Street online petition calling for Government proposals for the introduction of pay-as-you-drive road tolls to be scrapped. The online outcry led to suggestions the proposed fees could become “Labour’s poll tax”.

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BACKGROUND

• Careless Facebook users ‘open to identity theft’

• Ten essential Facebook accessories

• Parents are turning into online spies

• Networkers who click with 1,000 ‘friends’

Related Links

• Freight sector demands action on fuel prices

• Petrol and food prices push up inflation

Experts say that the mixture of high fuel prices and the phenomenon of social networking could prove a similarly combustible mix.

Henry Elliss, of Tamar, company that advises brands on how to manage their reputations online, said: "With six million active Facebook members in Britain, social networking is now powerful enough to take on brands who have left themselves open to attack.

“The failure by the fuel giants to communicate their reasons for price increases to the Facebook community is a warning to others.”

The potential mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of Facebook members will worry Downing Street. Gordon Brown will not want to relive the fuel protests of 2000, when masses of motorists heeded a call in August of that year to “dump the pump” in response to escalating forecourt prices. A month later, blockades kept tankers from reaching petrol stations.

The fear of similar protests in September 2005 led to thousands of petrol stations running dry in the wake of panic buying.

BP is being singled out in the current campaign, with members of the Facebook group alleging that the UK’s largest oil company has conspired to be the country’s dearest – an allegation that BP denies.

“It is very obvious that BP is the most expensive, therefore we should boycott all BP petrol stations,” the protest group’s Facebook page says.

It adds: “If customers stop using BP they will be forced to drop their prices, this will drive competition amongst the other companies and therefore lead to cheaper prices at the pump.”

A BP spokesman said that the price of the crude oil – now testing the $100-a-barrel barrier – used to make petrol and diesel have increased dramatically worldwide.

“This is due to a number of reasons including international unrest, demand in the US and the weak dollar.”

He added that BP does not have a national pricing policy and sets its site prices based on local market conditions, including transport costs and levels of competition.

“All prices for company-owned sites are based on local market conditions, taking into account such things as the cost of getting the fuel to the particular site, the price of crude oil as well as the actual cost of producing the fuel," the spokesman said.

"This means the prices can vary from site to site.”

A sharp rise in the cost of petrol has been a significant force behind a recent increase in the cost of living in the UK, according to official figures. The cost of a litre of petrol increased by 2.7p last month, after a surge in the price of oil and the introduction of a 2p rise in fuel duty. The rise helped to push consumer price inflation above the Bank of England’s 2 per cent target.

This week, the Freight Transport Association (FTA) wrote to Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, calling for a reversal of the 2p duty increase that was imposed last month.

It also called for different tax treatments for industry and private motorists.

Britain imposes a 50p duty charge per litre of diesel, compared with a European average of 23p.

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