Government on collision course with GMB union over job insecurity and excessive taxation

Britain’s energy industry faces collapse thanks to Labour’s “chaotic and needless” rundown of the oil and gas sector, one of its biggest union backers has warned. The Telegraph has the story.

Louise Gilmour, Scotland secretary of the GMB union, says “delusional” net zero policies championed by Ed Miliband are causing “arguably the most destructive industrial calamity in our nation’s history”.

Ms Gilmour directly attacks Mr Miliband over the “dismal” effects of his policies, which are killing British jobs and creating jobs in China for the ever-growing number of wind farms the Government insists on building.

She has backed a new report that says Britain will permanently lose its energy independence unless there is a major shift in Government policy.

It puts Labour on a collision course with its third-biggest union backer, which donates £1m a year to the party. The GMB has previously warned that Mr Miliband’s rush to net zero is costing jobs, but this is the most scathing attack to date on the Government by the union, which has 560,000 members.

The report by the Jobs Foundation, titled Cliff Edge, says 200 jobs per week are being lost because of Labour’s ban on North Sea exploration and taxes that are swallowing up companies’ entire profits.

In some cases, oil and gas firms are paying 120 per cent tax on their profits because of the Government’s energy profits levy (EPL).

‘Onrushing disaster’

It says investors are considering putting their money into Nigeria’s energy sector instead of Britain’s, saying the African country is a “more stable regime”.

Ms Gilmour writes in a foreword to the report: “Our governments [in Westminster and Holyrood] seem stricken, almost delusional, in the face of onrushing disaster, insisting we must ignore today’s reality and believe in tomorrow’s dreams.”

Read the full story here.