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By William Collinson
July 03, 2026 • 9 min read
The Red Herring of North Sea Oil and Gas
British energy prices make us uncompetitive. More drilling in the North Sea is not the answer.
One-half of Donald Trump's diagnosis for Kier Starmer's political ills was his failure to “let anybody drill” the UK's oil and gas reserves in the North Sea. This, as always with Mr Trump, was a wholly inadequate analysis, yet it certainly touches on the chief issue holding back Britain’s economy and driving the cost-of-living crisis: the extortionate price of British energy. Does this stem from a weak domestic fossil fuel industry and expensive Net Zero policies, or Britain’s crippling over-reliance on gas?
Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage have both proposed that, to combat this and to grant Britain greater energy autonomy to lessen the impact of global shocks, oil and gas reserves in the North Sea should be exploited to their fullest, forgoing Net-Zero commitments. This shiny policy sounds simple and effective. Instead, it is a red herring that Britain must avoid.
A Shattered Consensus
There was once a broad consensus in the House of Commons on the requirement for British global leadership in tackling the climate crisis, and on the goal of reaching Net-Zero by 2050. This has largely disintegrated. The Tories, who in 2019 signed Net Zero by 2050 into law under Theresa May, have backtracked from this supposedly lofty and overly ambitious aim. Replacing fossil fuels with more sustainable sources of energy is certainly expensive and does burden the taxpayer to some extent. Equally, politicians boasting about flashy investments in renewable energy projects appear out of touch with ordinary families who are increasingly struggling to make ends meet. Net Zero ambitions can be justifiably seen as a cosmopolitan passion project of a political elite out of touch with ordinary people, struggling increasingly with sky-high energy prices. This has explained why commitment to Net Zero has become increasingly challenged, and why the North Sea oil and gas preserves have been suggested as the common-sense alternative. It suits Reform's brand to stand heroically for oil rigs and shake a unified fist at windmills. The Conservatives should know better.
The perceived incompatibility of Net Zero with tackling Britain’s cost-of-living crisis is coupled with concerns around Britain’s reliance on the global gas market. Justifications for increasing drilling in the North Sea equally emphasise inaccurate arguments on domestic energy control. International conditions have changed drastically since 2019 – the height of the Commons consensus – with energy security taking centre stage. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 sent global gas prices skyrocketing, and intermittent armed conflicts in the Middle East, which frequently raise oil prices, can partly explain why the amount Britons spend on energy is ballooning. Thus, the argument follows: why should the UK constrain itself with commitments to Net Zero when our energy prices are already so high? British energy prices for both domestic and industrial use are for developed nations, with industry prices being the highest for IEA nations. This, to some, suggests that the UK should focus on the fossil fuels it supposedly can control, yet this reasoning is deeply flawed.
The UK is incredibly reliant upon gas. Around 1/3 of UK energy is still generated in gas power stations, gas that must be purchased from international markets at increasingly unaffordable and volatile prices.
Graph 1: GeoStrategy
Therefore, it could make sense for the UK to increase its domestic gas production, with the North Sea deposit staring politicians in the face. The simple logic behind this argument is what makes it powerful – it can be used to criticise government figures, largely Ed Miliband, for causing unnecessary economic strains on families and the economy.
However, going down this direction would be a dangerous waste of time and would send out a further signal that climate change as an issue has fallen further from the political landscape. UK oil and gas statistics and projections show that 93% of oil and gas has already been extracted from the North Sea – there simply is not enough to bring energy bills down or provide energy security. Even working at full capacity, North Sea oil and gas would have a negligible impact on their respective global market prices, meaning increased domestic production would do very little to ease the cost-of-living crisis. Contracting in private firms to drill for more oil, or more importantly, gas, would not impact soaring energy prices, as any new oil or gas would be sold at global market prices, regardless of whether it was produced domestically.
Seemingly, those who argue for a new UK energy strategy based on the North Sea oil and gas industry have underwritten their argument with culture politics. Point scoring against woke industrial policy, rather than a fully mapped-out route to cheaper energy costs, has driven Reform UK to claim this move would bring down energy bills, and while Badenoch centres her argument around providing local jobs, her party supports such policy simply because this wide misconception has electoral sway. Now that we have dealt with the economic fallacies that underpin this argument, we will deal with the energy security dimension of this debate. How does Britain secure autonomy over its energy?
While Reform and the Conservatives have argued that increasing domestic production of oil and gas will help shield the UK from shocks to the global market, the impact of furthering the UK's exploitation of the North Sea resources will have the converse effect. Britain would slow its shift towards renewables. A deeply damaging reliance upon gas would continue, whilst our impact on the gas markets remains negligible. Fully exploiting Britain’s resources would not shift gas prices in any impactful manner, and so Britain’s energy problem stems not from where we buy our gas; it comes from our over-reliance on an expensive and financially volatile commodity over which we, as a nation, ultimately lack the resources and capability to exercise any level of market influence.
The British economy can be, and frequently has been, derailed by changes in the international gas market. Intermittent shocks to the market, such as Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, have highlighted that Britain must pivot towards renewables to provide energy autonomy and subsequent security. The UK must aim to develop a leading renewable energy industry, to wean itself off international fossil fuel markets, especially that of gas, and make the British economy and ordinary family finances no longer financially reliant upon global stability. Britain's ring wing is correct that we need energy autonomy; the situation is desperate. They are fundamentally wrong, however, on how to get there.
Drill Baby Drill
This resurrection of the debate around oil and gas in the North Sea is the latest symptom of the downfall of climate issues in the political landscape. Net Zero, understandably, has fallen off the agenda, due in part to the imminence of the cost-of-living crisis and geopolitical instability. There remains a consensus in the Commons that climate change is happening; what has changed is convictions on the urgency of the problem, and how best to proceed. The debate around energy autonomy is central to this, and it is of intrinsic importance that progressive politicians can articulate their argument in an unpatronising and down-to-earth manner. Progressive politicians arguing for Miliband's dogged pursuit of Net Zero must properly engage both with the link to the cost-of-living crisis and the energy security arguments in debates on this issue. Hiding behind long-term aspirations will lose the progressive side this argument; Net Zero must be shown to be the right energy policy now, to combat our current significant challenges, not simply the right policy for the future.
The Scottish Conservative Party won its first Westminster By-election in 50 years, in Aberdeen South, on the promise of protecting the constituency's oil and gas industry. Equally, as the Green Party takes up the vacuum left by Jeremy Corbyn’s successive failed left-wing movements – the Labour Party in 2019 and his joint venture with Zara Sultana, 'Your Party' – the voice in British politics that so loudly and importantly advocated on the climate is now heard advocating for mandatory pay ratios and uncosted plans to abolish private landlords. With the Green Party taking up the vacuum for a truly socialist party in the UK, arguments on climate policy have been buried under increasingly extreme left-wing economic policy. What the electorate is fed by the Green Party is no longer chiefly climate arguments. This is a disappointing and dangerous development. Take Zack Polanski's Instagram account for instance: only three out of ten of his most recent posts (from the 3rd of July) mentioned climate in any sense, with economic policy, immigration and housing making up the bulk of content released by the Greens. Perhaps the booming Greens have simply taken the space that should have been occupied by 'Your Party'; a worthwhile position, as Parliament certainly needs a strong Socialist voice, yet this move has been another knife in the back of the climate agenda in British politics. How many more can it take?
Thus, the generationally important political agenda of solving the climate crisis has been kicked into the weeds by an overly ambitious Green Party and a Conservative Party watching its back. Seemingly, we must wait until future heatwaves break the 40-degree mark for climate change to re-enter the political debate in this increasingly toasty nation.
A Red Herring Proposal
Britain must drive the future of its own energy. The country can ill afford a continuation of the energy status quo and must carve out energy autonomy. Yet the source of this does not lie under the North Sea. As the nation has struggled under an oppressive heatwave, it is ironic that arguments on British domestic oil and gas production have recently been reignited. At the centre of this debate is Britain’s energy crisis. Climate change and energy autonomy are frequently suggested as antagonistic; instead, they have a positive relationship. This must be articulated better.
Furthering British reliance, specifically on gas, is clearly damaging to the environment, a widely accepted fact. To pursue energy autonomy, the renewable agenda is the correct one. Furthermore, to make British energy less reliant on shifts in global gas markets and construct a new domestic energy industry that is fit for the future, an over-reliance on gas must be discarded. This will ease the cost-of-living crisis and make British industry more competitive. Resources under the North Sea provide none of the benefits to the British population that are suggested, and this proposed future direction of British energy is a red herring that the nation cannot afford to pursue.