Rachel Reeves just told drivers a huge whopper – she has no problem gouging motorists | Personal Finance | Finance

The economy has completely ground to a halt on Rachel Reeves’s watch. That’s nothing to do with her tax and spend blitz, apparently. It’s all the fault of those useless Tories, who lost power 20 months ago. Failing that, she’ll blame Brexit, now her catch-all excuse for everything that’s gone wrong. Or the war on Iran. Today, as motorists rage at rising fuel prices, she’s found yet another scapegoat. Petrol forecourt bosses.

Reeves has accused retailers of exploiting the Middle East conflict to hike prices and overcharge motorists. Energy secretary Ed Miliband has joined in. For him to blame others for sky-high energy costs is beyond hypocrisy, given that his reckless net zero charge has crushed British industry with the highest prices in the world.

Reeves raged that she “will not tolerate any company exploiting the current situation to make excess profits at consumers’ expense”. She also claimed she was “backing drivers and families” and expects “a fair deal at the pump”. That’s rich. Because which organisation is gouging motorists more than any other? The one she runs.

Fuel duty adds 52.95p to the cost of every single litre of petrol and diesel motorists buy. That’s only for starters. The Treasury then slaps 20% VAT on top. Incredibly, that’s levied on both the fuel price AND the duty itself. So drivers are paying tax upon tax.

That adds another 10.59p per litre, lifting the total cost to 63.54p a litre. It means someone filling up a 40-litre tank hands £25.42 straight to HMRC. And Reeves talks about excess profits.

Fuel duty will hand her £24billion this year, and it’s about to get worse. In September, Reeves plans to axe the “temporary” 5p cut to fuel duty, introduced in 2022. Unless we get another Starmer U-turn, petrol prices will jump overnight. I wonder who’ll she blame then.

The Treasury also hits motorists with Road Tax, insurance premium tax on motor cover, and VAT on repairs, maintenance and anything else you can think of. The Tories were just as bad.

So for Reeves to claim the moral high ground completely defies belief. Especially when she’s also hammered Brits with around £70billion in tax rises, after promising she wouldn’t target “working people” at all. But there’s a darker side to all this. Basically, her words have been inciting violence.

The Petrol Retailers Association has warned that ministerial talk of “rip-offs” and “profiteering” has led to abuse of forecourt staff. These are people working long hours, often on modest wages, simply trying to do their jobs. Reeves and Miliband have slapped targets on their backs.

Retailers also claim that many are operating on razor-thin margins, sometimes even selling at a loss. Lest we forget, Reeves has also piled extra costs on them, in the shape of two inflation-busting minimum wage hikes, and £26billion employer’s National Insurance hike. That ends up on forecourt prices too. Her cheek is staggering.

Reeves causes chaos then ducks all responsibility and shifts the blame onto others. Working people are the ones who get hit, time and again. If motorists want to know who’s really gouging them, they should look to Westminster. Politicians like Reeves have been ripping off motorists for years, and will keep doing so long after the Iran crisis has passed.