UK
Kemi Badenoch slammed for being ‘on the side of oil and gas giants’
The Tory leader will use a speech today to call for an end to the windfall tax and to lift the ban on new oil and gas licences
After receiving donations from oil investors and climate sceptics, Kemi Badenoch will use a speech at Scottish Conservative Party conference today to side with oil and gas companies.
Badenoch will call for the end of the windfall tax on profits that gas and oil companies generate and to lift the ban on new gas and oil licences.
The Tory leader is expected to say that “renewing our party and our country means standing up for our oil and gas industry”.
Jackie Baillie, Deputy Leader of Scottish Labour, said: “While the Tories and SNP let energy workers down by failing to plan for the future, Scottish Labour is committed to taking action towards reaching net zero, creating jobs and cutting energy bills.”
Baillie added: “The Tories are on the side of oil and gas giants rather than working Scots, but Scottish Labour will work with the UK Government and use devolved powers to deliver a just transition for the industry. With Kemi Badenoch desperately attempting to rally the few remaining Scottish Tories, it seems like it won’t be long until they can fit all of their MSPs in a single taxi.”
Badenoch will tell the conference: “When the oil and gas windfall tax, the energy profits levy, was brought in, the oil price was near a historic high, at the exact time as energy bills for the British people were sky-rocketing.
“But there is no longer a windfall to tax. It has long gone. And the longer this regressive tax on one of our most successful industries remains, the more damaging it becomes.”
She will also accuse Labour of “killing” the oil and gas industry. This comes as the impacts of climate change intensify. The UK experienced the the driest spring in 132 years, with two regions, the Northwest of England and Yorkshire, now having entered into drought status.
In January, the Tories received a donation of £50,000 from Neil Record, a climate sceptic and chair of Net Zero Watch. Record also gave £10,000 to Badenoch’s leadership campaign last year—and has since donated a further £6,000.
During February half-term Badenoch and her family attended a three-day residential hosted and paid for by Record, which cost approximately £14,350.38.
Net Zero Watch has received over half a million dollars from the climate-sceptic billionaire Koch brothers.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
13 June, 2025
The Tory leader will use a speech today to call for an end to the windfall tax and to lift the ban on new oil and gas licences
After receiving donations from oil investors and climate sceptics, Kemi Badenoch will use a speech at Scottish Conservative Party conference today to side with oil and gas companies.
Badenoch will call for the end of the windfall tax on profits that gas and oil companies generate and to lift the ban on new gas and oil licences.
The Tory leader is expected to say that “renewing our party and our country means standing up for our oil and gas industry”.
Jackie Baillie, Deputy Leader of Scottish Labour, said: “While the Tories and SNP let energy workers down by failing to plan for the future, Scottish Labour is committed to taking action towards reaching net zero, creating jobs and cutting energy bills.”
Baillie added: “The Tories are on the side of oil and gas giants rather than working Scots, but Scottish Labour will work with the UK Government and use devolved powers to deliver a just transition for the industry. With Kemi Badenoch desperately attempting to rally the few remaining Scottish Tories, it seems like it won’t be long until they can fit all of their MSPs in a single taxi.”
Badenoch will tell the conference: “When the oil and gas windfall tax, the energy profits levy, was brought in, the oil price was near a historic high, at the exact time as energy bills for the British people were sky-rocketing.
“But there is no longer a windfall to tax. It has long gone. And the longer this regressive tax on one of our most successful industries remains, the more damaging it becomes.”
She will also accuse Labour of “killing” the oil and gas industry. This comes as the impacts of climate change intensify. The UK experienced the the driest spring in 132 years, with two regions, the Northwest of England and Yorkshire, now having entered into drought status.
In January, the Tories received a donation of £50,000 from Neil Record, a climate sceptic and chair of Net Zero Watch. Record also gave £10,000 to Badenoch’s leadership campaign last year—and has since donated a further £6,000.
During February half-term Badenoch and her family attended a three-day residential hosted and paid for by Record, which cost approximately £14,350.38.
Net Zero Watch has received over half a million dollars from the climate-sceptic billionaire Koch brothers.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
11 June, 2025
Left Foot Forward
In the months leading up to Badenoch’s announcement that she would no longer be supporting net zero targets, the Tories received significant donations from individuals with fossil fuel interests, as well as the chair of a leading anti-climate campaign group.
Left Foot Forward
In the months leading up to Badenoch’s announcement that she would no longer be supporting net zero targets, the Tories received significant donations from individuals with fossil fuel interests, as well as the chair of a leading anti-climate campaign group.
The Tory party is up for sale! It’s been revealed that party leader, Kemi Badenoch, decided to scrap its commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050 after receiving donations from oil investors and climate sceptics.
After its worst defeat in its Parliamentary history last year, the Tories have continuously lurched further to the right, pandering to its right-wing base by criticising and attacking net zero policies.
It’s now been revealed by journalist Sam Bright that The Conservative Party scrapped a key climate commitment in the same period that it received £250,000 from oil investors and climate science deniers.
In the months leading up to Badenoch’s announcement that she would no longer be supporting net zero targets, the Tories received significant donations from individuals with fossil fuel interests, as well as the chair of a leading anti-climate campaign group.
Sam Bright states in his substack: “New Electoral Commission records released today show that the Tories accepted £50,000 in January from Neil Record, who provided funding and office space to Badenoch’s leadership campaign last year.
“Record is the chair of Net Zero Watch – the campaign arm of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), the UK’s foremost climate science denial group. The GWPF regularly contradicts even the most basic climate science, suggesting that CO2 emissions are “not pollution”.
It should be pointed out that Record was also former chair of the Institute of Economic Affairs, the right-wing think tank which provided the blueprint for many of the disastrous ideas contained in Liz Truss’ mini-budget.
Electoral commission records also show that the Tories accepted £117,600 from Alasdair Locke, who made his fortune in the oil industry as well as £75,000 from Lord Michael Spencer, a billionaire financier and former party treasurer who’s an investor in two fossil fuel companies.
DeSmog has previously reported that Spencer’s company, Deltic Energy, in which he was the largest shareholder, was awarded two new North Sea exploration licences by the last Tory government.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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