LONDON — Labour MPs and climate campaigners are abandoning resistance to a controversial new North Sea gas field ahead of Andy Burnham’s expected entry into Downing Street next month — but they say they’ll carry on fighting over a second, even more contentious, oil field.
Burnham, who is on a path to becoming Labour leader and U.K. prime minister within weeks, is under pressure from the party’s union backers to approve Jackdaw, a major new gas development 150 miles east of Aberdeen in northeast Scotland, as well as Rosebank, an oil and gas field 80 miles off the Shetland coast.
The twin projects are bêtes noires for British climate campaigners and have been held up for years by legal challenges. A final decision from regulators is expected soon and then the last sign-off must come from the U.K. government.
Bill Esterson, a Labour MP and chair of the House of Commons Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, said: “My assumption is that both Jackdaw and Rosebank will go ahead.”
