Horsham residents join MP in protest against new North Sea oil drilling

Mr Milne joined them in their protest on Friday, November 13.

The demonstration was part of a UK-wide Stop Rosebank Day of Action, which saw scores of visits to MP’s offices from Aberdeen to Exeter.

With the UK government expected to make a final decision on the Rosebank oil field by mid-December, locals are urging their MPs to stand with ordinary people and call on the government to reject the oil field.

Horsham MP Mr Milne said: “There are a few popular misconceptions about why we should approve Rosebank. Firstly, that it would cut our bills – that is simply not true. It's just not big enough in the scale of things. The oil is sold on the world market, and it will make no difference on prices.

“Secondly, that it would improve fuel security. That's very important in the context of the war with Russia and limited supplies, however this oil may come from the North Sea but it could end up anywhere with whoever pays the most for it. It doesn't make any difference that it comes from the North Sea.

“And thirdly, that we could get some good tax revenue from it, very important to fund public services, but that too is unlikely to be true.

“The oil company can offset the profits against the development costs and also against decommissioning costs, plus the government is softening its tax regime in a few years, so look at all of that together and it could be that we get no tax revenue from it, or certainly not nearly as much as has been said.

“I think the government needs to make a decision based on the facts and not based on popular misconceptions.”

The decision to approve or reject Rosebank follows this summer’s record temperatures, which claimed thousands of lives, strained hospitals, schools and transport systems, and saw UK’s firefighters tackle over 1,000 wildfires across the country.

Labour is facing internal pressure to reject new drilling, with scores of its own backbenchers among a growing number of MPs and MSPs – over 80, to date – pledging to oppose the project on climate, economic and human rights grounds.

Rosebank, which is the UK’s largest undeveloped oil field, would, if approved, produce over 250 million tonnes of CO2e, equivalent to around 70 per cent of UK annual emissions – making Rosebank incompatible with international climate goals and the UK’s climate commitments.

Rosie Latchford, campaigner at Stop Rosebank said: “This past summer, the UK suffered record-breaking heatwaves and wildfires – all fuelled by fossil fuels.

“Now, as winter sets in, millions are worrying about staying warm this winter due to soaring oil and gas prices.

Rosebank just makes all of this worse. It will make no meaningful difference to UK energy security, will do nothing to lower household energy bills, and the vast climate pollution it generates will exacerbate the extreme weather we are already seeing.

“All it will do is give even more money to Big Oil, who’ve already made billions at our expense.”