PRESSURE is mounting on Sir Keir Starmer for a U-turn on Labour’s highly-controversial proposal to block all new North Sea oil and gas developments.
One of the party’s biggest union backers has now urged the leader to rethink his plan.
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Gary Smith, general secretary of the GMB, warned against strangling the offshore industry and stressed there was a national security imperative to keep producing fossil fuels in British waters.
He vowed to “face down” proposals to ban new North Sea oil and gas drilling as Labour prepares to set out its general election manifesto.
The union leader’s intervention comes ahead of Sir Keir’s expected announcement of Labour’s net-zero plans in the coming weeks.
He is set to use a speech in Scotland next month to outline the mission for a Labour administration.
The proposals are widely expected to include a pledge to ban all new North Sea oil and gas licences in a major break with current UK Government policy.
Sir Keir is also expected to promise to double onshore wind, triple solar and more than quadruple offshore wind.
Mr Smith fired a warning shot that his union would oppose any Labour attempt to head into the general election with a promise to ban all new North Sea oil and gas licences.
The GMB is among Labour’s biggest funders and helped to bankroll the party’s election campaign in 2019.
“It would be self-defeating not to maximise extraction from our own oil and gas – and that’s going to be a difficult debate but it’s one we’ll have to face down,” Mr Smith told the Financial Times.
“There’s ethics involved. Are we going to keep funding these regimes in the Middle East and the likes of Russia, or do we take responsibility for our own carbon and create jobs and investment here?”
Mr Smith said there was no point in strangling Britain’s oil and gas industry, adding: “We need to work with the industry to encourage investment in the green technologies of the future.”
But the GMB general secretary suggested Sir Keir’s team were “in the mood to listen” to his union’s stance.
“The Labour party understands that there is a national security imperative around this as well,” he added.
“Our biggest challenge is going to be how we keep the lights on and keep homes heated and industry powered over the next decade, we are one pipeline or one cable going down away from a serious energy crisis.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has insisted it makes sense to utilise sources in the UK rather than rely on imports as the country transitions away from hydrocarbons.
Tories have attacked any move to ban new North Sea oil and gas developments.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary, told the Daily Mail: “It is green hypocrisy of a high order.
“We will still need the oil and gas but will import it, which means higher emissions because of transport and the energy required to liquify and then regasify liquefied natural gas (LNG).”
Fellow Tory backbencher Craig MacKinlay, who leads the Net-Zero Scrutiny Group of Conservative MPs, said: “Whilst I have been widely condemning our own flawed energy policy, Labour’s plans to block any new North Sea oil and gas is incoherent.
“Gas remains the flexible backbone of electricity generation and home heating, with oil the mainstay of motive power and industrial processes.
“More UK-produced oil and gas has advantages in ensuring reliable domestic supply bringing investment, jobs and tax revenues – and is hugely positive to the country’s perpetually-poor balance of payments record.
“Labour’s plans to import more will simply enrich foreign treasuries and increase CO2 output, such is the flawed model of international LNG shipments.
“When politicians follow flawed ideology the result is usually 180 degrees away from what common sense would dictate. These plans are truly dangerous.”
Ryan Crighton, policy director at Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce, has warned that the price of getting the energy transition wrong was 17,000 jobs in the North-east alone.
He said: “Big ambition on renewable energy is exactly what we need.
“However, once again, we have politicians threatening to undermine the energy transition with a position on oil and gas that is not grounded in the reality of how net zero will be delivered.
“This is pie in the sky stuff from Labour drawn up with zero engagement with the industry, or the region, which has been powering the UK for 50 years.
“Sir Keir Starmer has promised to come to Aberdeen – he needs to make good on that promise in the coming weeks before this hugely-damaging policy position further erodes investment in our energy sector.
“If the alternative is importing oil and gas from other countries at a greater carbon cost, then the UK should always favour domestic production. This is a position which has been consistently backed by the public in numerous polls.”
