UK ‘will grind to halt’ if MPs taget diesel

BRITAIN’S economy will “grind to a halt” if politicians press ahead with punitive plans to “demonise diesels” and drive them off the road, transport chiefs warned at the start of the UK’s biggest commercial vehicle show.

Supermarket shelves will be left empty, factories will run short of key supplies and face production bottlenecks, vital store and online deliveries to homes and businesses will cease, and emergency services could be hit, if diesel drivers and “white van man” continues to be unfairly targeted with toxicity taxes, they claim.

Millions of jobs in small businesses, sole-traders and haulage firms are also being put at risk by politicians using the diesel row as a blunt instrument and revenue raiser to swell council and government coffers, they added.