GMB attacks Labor plans to end new oil and gas licenses in the North Sea

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The head of the GMB union, one of Labour’s biggest donors, has called on party leader Keir Starmer to scrap plans to ban all new fossil fuel extraction licenses in the North Sea.

Gary Smith said there was a “national security imperative” to keep Britain’s oil and gas industry alive, as the country would continue to use those fuels for decades even under its “Net Zero 2050” target.

“It would be self-defeating not to maximize extraction from our own oil and gas, and that will be a tough debate, but that’s one we will have to deal with,” the GMB secretary-general said in an interview with the Financial Times.

Starmer confirmed in January that the Labor manifesto would include a pledge not to issue new licenses for the North Sea, even though companies would be able to exploit sites that already have permission from the authorities. The policy is part of an ambitious “Green Prosperity Plan” designed to accelerate Britain’s progress towards net zero.

But the plan has caused consternation within the GMB, Britain’s largest manufacturing union.

Smith said ‘strangling’ the North Sea oil industry would be ‘bad for jobs’ and would be ‘bad for the environment’ because the UK would still have to import gas and oil from overseas with a footprint higher carbon.

“Ethics are involved; Will we continue to fund these regimes in the Middle East and Russia’s like, or will we take responsibility for our own carbon and create jobs and investment here? he said.

Smith also argued that big oil and gas companies could be “vital” in providing investment in renewable energy projects in the future.

“It makes no sense to strangle the industry. We need to work with industry to encourage investment in the green technologies of the future,” she said.

Smith said Starmer’s team was “in the mood to hear” his argument before Labour’s National Policy Forum meets in the summer and added his union would press the case at the party’s October conference in Liverpool.

“The musical atmosphere of the party is different,” he said. “The Labor Party understands that there is also a national security imperative around this. Our biggest challenge will be how we keep the lights on and keep homes heated and industry fueled over the next decade, we are a pipeline or cable unplugging from a major energy crisis.”

Graham Stuart, the climate minister, said on Thursday that the government was “committed to getting new oil and gas licenses in the North Sea”, insisting it was compliant with Net Zero.

Philip Evans, a climate campaigner at Greenpeace – who has a pending lawsuit against the government’s new round of oil and gas licensing – said that was an “absurd” position for the minister to take.

“All new oil and gas drilling is incompatible with 1.5°C. Don’t take my word for it, this is also the opinion of the International Energy Agency, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, as well as countless academics and scientists,” he said.

“If the government had an ounce of interest in limiting the effects of the climate crisis, it would reverse its decision to allow more fossil fuel production and stop supporting an industry that is destroying the planet.”

A Labor aide said a Starmer government would not “turn off the taps” immediately and would allow companies to continue developing the North Sea fields where they already have licences.

“Oil and gas will continue to play an important role in the transition to net zero, and the skills and experience of oil and gas workers will be vital as we move towards different sources of energy,” he said. “Labour’s plans . . . provide energy security for the country and good jobs for these workers, including in clean energy sources.