Unions Turn on Ed Miliband and Labour Over Net Zero as the Tragedy of Aberdeen Unfolds

The recent Jobs Foundation ‘Cliff Edge’ report is a disturbing insight into the wilful economic and societal destruction of Britain’s oil capital Aberdeen. The standout quote comes from Louise Gilmour, the Scottish Secretary of the GMB union, who described the Labour Government’s “stricken, almost delusional” rush to Net Zero as, “arguably the most destructive industrial calamity in our nation’s history – a disaster risking untold jobs, communities, even higher bills and our energy security”. But the report is flawed – or rather much of the thinking revealed in its excellent local reporting is a delusional halfway mish mash. It is the pace of Net Zero that is often seen as problematic, rather than the actual need for the neo-Malthusian command-and-control fantasy. It reads in parts like the cry of the sinner down the ages: “Oh Lord, make me holy, but not just yet.”

In many parts of the world, the gig for the Net Zero plan is up. Now the industrial brothers and sisters of the Labour party affiliated trade unions are starting to call a halt that even dunderhead political elites in England and Scotland cannot fail to note. The idea that workers will seamlessly find new jobs harnessing the power of the wind, sun and sea is a “lovely thought”, said Gilmour, “but bears little resemblance to the chaotic reality of a rushed and needless rundown of our oil and gas sector”.

But Gilmour also writes in a foreword in the report of a requirement to continue to build renewable capacity “and the need for measured progress towards Net Zero”. The report quotes approvingly of the Extinction Rebellion funder and subsidised onshore wind operator Dale Vince (Lord, truly help us) who suggests a managed decline for North Sea Oil. Vince is not stupid and he has worked out that his weather-dependent, aging, onshore wind turbines require hydrocarbon backup for often lengthy periods when the wind does not blow. He understands that a week-long winter wind drought will not be rescued by a couple of hours of battery stored energy. Like the decades-long promises of climate ‘tipping point’ scares, all the grand plans for storing so-called ‘green’ electricity have amounted to the square root of sod all.

The report argues that thousands of jobs are on the line if the transition from oil and gas to renewables “is not handled much better in the UK than it is currently”. But the jury has long given its verdict on Net Zero. The number of countries like the UK ignoring its damning verdict is rapidly falling. Hydrocarbons are everywhere, from plastics to medicines to fertiliser. Sure and certain economic death awaits any developed country that tries to do without them. For their part, renewables are useless for powering a modern country. They screw up grid frequency, leading to blackout risks, they are intermittent and rely on eye-watering subsidies, they drive bills up and scare away manufacturing and service industries, while their environmental track record is truly shocking. Supporters of these horror shows need to turn a blind eye to massive wildlife disruption and slaughter.

All of this is supported by some of the flimsiest science imaginable. The climate ‘crisis’ is invented by activists, and the opinions surrounding human-caused computer-modelled climate change are so poor that proponents are reduced to refusing to debate the matter due to its ‘settled’ status. The extra carbon dioxide produced by humans burning hydrocarbons has beneficially lifted atmospheric levels from past denuded and dangerously low amounts and started to ‘green’ the planet. Lies about extreme weather getting worse are debunked by simply looking at past data, while the role of natural climate variation is almost completely ignored. The idea that ‘carbon’ is a pollutant is risible given that it is the key structural element in all organic molecules and makes up nearly 20% of the human body weight. Every day, every human being on the planet breathes out over two pounds of CO₂.

Back to Aberdeen, and we can observe the damage all this climate crisis and Net Zero lying has caused. Nowhere is the oil slump more obvious than at the port where business development manager Kieran Morton refers to a “cliff edge”. Partly driven by a ban on new drilling licences and the continuing windfall tax on oil companies, Morton notes a 20% drop over the last six months in platform supply vessels. You can tell by that alone, he notes, “there’s a lot less work going on”. While he also hangs onto the view that wind power will be an important source of energy for Britain in future, he suggests that most of the claimed new jobs will be in short-term employment such as building infrastructure.

Assembling wind kits built in China might be more accurate. In her foreword, Louise Gilmour said she would not hold her breath over Ed Miliband’s recently increased claim that 400,000 renewable jobs would be created in the UK. Even as he spoke, she continued, the first eight – out of 54 – 2,300-tonne monopile foundations for the Inch Cape wind farm were arriving in Leith after being ferried 9,000 miles from Qinzhou in China. “It would have been almost funny if not so absolutely dismal,” she observed. Again back in the real world, the latest figures from the Office for National Statistic show that there are currently twice the number of jobs in environmental agitprop ‘charities’ than in the wind power generating business. Jobs, of course, taken by posh people polishing their parasitical halos rather than horny-handed sons of toil.

The report whose full title is ‘Cliff Edge: Jobs in Aberdeen, the epicentre of the UK’s energy transition’ highlights the growth of the city from a fishing port in the 1960s to the oil capital of Europe following the discovery of hydrocarbon abundance in the North Sea. There is still plenty of oil and gas out there, as the example of neighbouring Norway continues to show. But under the Net Zero hegemony, tens of thousands of well-paid jobs have been lost, with the effects cascading through the local economy. House prices in the area fell by a provisional 6.2% in the year to September 2025, compared with a rise in the same period across Scotland of 5.3%. Meanwhile, the oil companies and many of the engineering operations supporting them are shutting up shop and moving elsewhere. There is plenty of oil and gas to be produced elsewhere in the world.

There is a need to be realistic about the causes of the catastrophe. Once a champion of the wealth that flowed from ‘Scotland’s Oil’, the Scottish National Party (SNP) has been in power in Holyrood for nearly two decades. During this period, the pride in the oil has been replaced by leaders like the late Alex Salmond boasting that the country would become the “Saudi Arabia of renewable energy”. Currently, nine members of the ruling SNP come from the north-east Scotland roll that includes the Aberdeen area. All presumably are committed to Net Zero and the final destruction of the oil business. The area even has one Green MSP called Maggie Chapman. Last year, she expressed support for the sinister private member’s bill in the British Parliament that would have outlawed the use of almost all hydrocarbons in the UK, seemingly in whatever imported or exported form,  in under a decade. Future elections around the UK, particularly in the last remaining industrial areas, may well see posters spring up along the lines that turkeys do not vote for Christmas.

The unfolding tragedy of Aberdeen is not a signal to go easy on Net Zero, rather it is a clear message to cancel it as soon as possible.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor. Follow him on X.