According to reports, the left-wing Labour Party is planning to block all new oil and gas operations in the North Sea and only grant financing and investments to so-called green agenda.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, eyeing to become the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, is planning to make the green agenda a prominent part of his campaign appeal to voters in the next general election.
Among these proposals, according to London’s Sunday Times, will be a ban on government licences for new gas and oil projects in the North Sea, in favour of so-called renewables instead, as part of the “green prosperity” plan to make Britain into a “clean energy superpower.”
Speaking to the publication, a Labour Party source said: “We are against the granting of new licences for oil and gas in the North Sea. They will do nothing to cut bills as the Tories have acknowledged.
“They undermine our energy security and would drive a coach and horse through our climate targets. But Labour would continue to use existing oil and gas wells over the coming decades and manage them sustainably as we transform the UK into a clean energy superpower.”
Currently, domestic sources meet approximately 45 percent of the UK’s gas requirements, implying that the country may be forced to become more reliant on adversarial regimes in the Middle East or Russia in order to keep the lights on under Starmer’s plan, which would reduce domestic gas and oil production by 80 percent in ten years.
The Labour Party’s secret green proposals were slammed by Dave Whitehouse, CEO of Offshore Energies UK, who said, “People wouldn’t forgive anyone who shut down Britain’s oil and gas industry and replaced it with imports… Labour’s approach risks sending the wrong signals.”
While the left-wing party seeks to expedite the green agenda, the governing Tory Party has not fared much better in terms of energy policy, with North Sea oil output down 26% from 2018. The Conservative Party also banned fracking for natural gas due to unfounded concerns about seismic tremors.