THE Aberdeen South SNP MP who ousted Ian Blackford as the party’s Westminster leader wants Nicola Sturgeon to drop her “crazy” opposition to new North Sea oil and gas fields, his allies have said.
Stephen Flynn, the clear front-runner to replace Mr Blackford, is reported to take the pragmatic view that it would be better to continue production of fossil fuels in Scottish waters rather than import them from abroad to meet domestic demand.
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The Telegraph says friends of the MP, whose constituency takes in thousands of oil and gas workers, said he hoped to convince the first minister that she should water down her opposition to new fields being developed.
hey warned he faces an uphill task if elected as Mr Blackford’s successor because Ms Sturgeon does not listen to many people over party policy and the pair “don’t have much of a current relationship”.
But they said he would be keen to work well with her, and emphasised that her failing to change her stance on oil and gas threatens to damage the economic case for independence.
The Aberdeen South MP clashed with Patrick Harvie, one of the two Green ministers in Ms Sturgeon’s government, a year ago after Mr Harvie argued that “only the hard-Right” supported new oil and gas exploration.
Mr Blackford, a loyal ally of the first minister, announced last week that he would not restand for leader of the SNP Westminster group.
Although he denied being forced out, SNP insiders told the Telegraph he had to resign after it emerged Mr Flynn had the necessary support among the party’s 44 MPs to oust him.
The 34-year-old, who only became an MP in the 2019 general election, is expected to be named Mr Blackford’s successor at the AGM this week and may be crowned uncontested.
His supporters say they believe Mr Flynn will stand up to the first minister more than Mr Blackford did, and give MPs more influence over party policy and strategy.
They emphasised that he agreed with Ms Sturgeon’s views on most issues, but admitted he took a different stance on oil and gas.
“The first minister’s position on that has become a bit crazy over the past year because she enjoyed showboating at COP26,” one of Mr Flynn’s allies told the Telegraph.
“There needs to be a serious discussion – his constituency has thousands of jobs in that industry that would be lost before renewables could replace them.”
An MP supporting Mr Flynn said he had been building support to challenge Mr Blackford for several months, with his fellow MPs growing increasingly dissatisfied with the Ross, Skye and Lochaber MP’s performance.
It is reported he informed the SNP leadership he intended to challenge Mr Blackford for the leadership a few weeks ago, but he was initially talked out standing by Ms Sturgeon’s representatives.
But the Telegraph says that, in a sign of Ms Sturgeon’s diminishing authority since the Supreme Court ruled she does not have the power to stage an independence referendum, Mr Flynn quickly moved again last week to remove Mr Blackford.
Both Mr Blackford and Ms Sturgeon denied he had been ousted, with the first minister handing him a role at the centre of the SNP’s independence campaign – leading on business engagement.
