Miliband Expected to Block North Sea Oil Drilling
Ed Miliband is expected to block fresh oil drilling in the North Sea despite growing pressure to resume production to combat the energy crisis sparked by the Iran war. The Telegraph has the story.
The Energy Secretary is understood to be resisting the development of Rosebank, the UK’s largest untapped oil field, estimated to contain up to 300 million barrels of oil.
He is against new drilling licences despite concerns over impending fuel shortages, surging oil prices and diminishing stocks.
Despite growing pressure from opponents and his own Cabinet, including Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, Miliband has also delayed a decision on a licence to drill at the Jackdaw gas field, which it is estimated could produce the equivalent of 6% of the UK’s future gas supply.
The move delays the decision until after the May local elections, which could trigger a Labour leadership battle where he has been mooted as a potential contender. On Friday, Miliband’s aides dismissed as “unfounded” suggestions that he was minded to approve Jackdaw.
Any block on North Sea drilling puts him at odds with not only Kemi Badenoch, who this week launched a “Get Britain Drilling” campaign, and Nigel Farage’s Reform, but also the SNP, whose leader, John Swinney, on Thursday reversed the nationalist party’s opposition to further oil and gas exploration in the North Sea.
Swinney said the Iran war had changed the “balance of the arguments”. Speaking at a Holyrood election hustings, the Scottish First Minister said “energy security” had to be taken into account when deciding whether developments such as Rosebank oilfields and the Jackdaw gas project were allowed to proceed.
Robert Jenrick, Reform’s Treasury spokesman, told the Telegraph: “Keir Starmer needs to grow a backbone, overrule Ed Miliband and open up both Jackdaw and Rosebank immediately. It is completely mad that we are choosing not to exploit our own resources in the middle of an energy crisis.”
There is also a growing split within Labour. Unions led by the GMB have been vocal in their calls for the Government to give the go-ahead to both fields.
The Chancellor has also indicated that she supported increased drilling in the North Sea, saying this week she would be “very happy” to support extraction at Rosebank and Jackdaw because of the positive effect on “jobs and tax revenue”.
Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, said he believed the licences should be approved. Asked whether he believed Mr Miliband, who is seen as hostile to fossil fuels, was doing a good job, Sarwar said: “Yes, but there’s work to do.”
He added: “We made a commitment before the election that we would honour licences that were granted. The licences then have come into question – we should honour those licences.”
Sir Keir Starmer has refused to comment on the Jackdaw scheme, citing the fact that it is a quasi-judicial decision for Miliband.
However, Downing Street is said to be acutely aware that public opinion on further drilling has been shifting as a result of the crisis in the Middle East.
Worth reading in full.
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Net Zero is a political policy and little to do with environmental or climate change (with which it has next to no connection). The left have persuaded most of the elite classes to unthinkingly follow Net Zero but the objective, as ever with the left, is control.
The left also relish damage to western capitalist economies so they might complete their socialist objectives. To help solve an energy supply problem would be contrary to their objectives.
The Labour Party has been damaging the economy since they came to power after WWII. They have one policy and that is to create poverty.
Exactly. But you still get people who say “Labour once stood for the working man”.
Which it never did.
In my professional life I have met many people, Lords, Ladies, Aristocracy from many countries, politicians from all parties and I can safely say that Labour have no respect for the working classes. All the aforementioned do because they know that without the working classes their lives would be dreadful, so they mostly show some courtesy to ordinary people. Labour are wannabes but have little to offer apart from utter bullsh*t.
Milliband is the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, why is he supported in ignoring his primary responsibility?
Big money in the green no energy world.
He’s a traitor that’s why.
It’s an oxymoron. You can have either energy security or net zero; you can’t have both.
It is the UN Politics of Sustainable Development. The Miliband’s of this world are fully aligned with this eco socialism and will cling onto the climate change lifeboat till they drown.
One objective is control; the other is to make us completely inter-dependent on energy via the connectors to “our friends” on the continent.
Work out the odds of him being replaced in the (likely) cabinet reshuffle after the May elections, if you’re into gambling!
Has there ever been a cabinet so controlled by one individual, not even a holder of one of the great offices of state, who can dictate policy to the prime minister and override him. We are told that this lunatic derives power from the support of the left wing of the party – really, because it’s not the unions, who are withdrawing support, both political and financial. It’s not the working classes, who are being ground down with higher cost of living and job losses. Who gives this deranged fool the power base to make the prime minister scared of dumping him and his insane cult?
Absolutely right.
These people are largely hated at home, they expect to be able to operate on the world stage even when it is obvious for the world to see that they don’t even respect the people of the UK. How can they be respected by anyone in the world when they have no respect for the people. How they have the audacity to show themselves in public is a mystery, the EU being the exception of course.
But remember that Net Zero is the law in this country. We are forced in law to reduce emissions of CO2 and although we know MIliband is a rabid Net Zero Nut Job it was actually the Conservatives (Teresa May 2019) who gave us the Net Zero Amendment.
The entire Political Class are in on this climate scam that isn’t even about the climate and even if Miliband were sacked tomorrow Net Zero will still be enshrined in UK Law.
“Sir Keir Starmer has refused to comment.. citing the fact that it is a quasi-judicial decision for Miliband.”
No, just passing the buck and fence sitting as usual.
In theory Kier Starmer can choose who the Secretary of State for Energy is, and can replace him. In practice it is becoming ever more clear Miliband is in charge. God help us!
Of course he is. Doing as he is told.
I did not fully see it but on GB News this morning there flashed up something alleging that opening up new oil and gas production would have no effect on energy prices. I suspect this might refer to a bullshit report produced by an Oxford University bunch of activists and is so full of holes that even the thickest crude oil would seep out.
The only valid point is that with hardly any refinery capacity left additional oil production would not bring an increased supply here immediately.
The reduction in refining capacity is a major issue, and is sadly a reflection on the reduced oil extraction – you need to run refineries at or near capacity to make money…
Price is now almost irrelevant.
Ensuring supply is where we are at now.
Go to the website of Kathryn Porter or see her posts on X to see why this is FALSE.
When you take gas from lets say Qatar, it first has to be liquefied at great cost, then shipped at great cost, then re gassed at great cost. This is pure insanity, and all it does is allow Miliband and the absurd eco socialists to claim we in the UK reduced OUR emissions of CO2 but at astronomical expense. But if the Earth is going to heat up because of global warming it does not care which country emits the CO2. The UK outsourcing its emissions elsewhere will actually make the alleged global warming even worse as bringing fossil fuels from thousands of miles away causes more emissions than if we got them on our doorstep —–We are being played by the phoney planet savers.
Dunning-Kruger effect in action. The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which the incompetent lack the skills and cognitive abilities to recognise their own inability. This man(?) is as dumb as dogsh**, and malicious into the bargain. Under the Edstone is where he belongs.
So ONE so called Man 🤡 can dictate to a whole nation ! What a F in joke !!
Miliband is a traitor.