The United Kingdom currently faces some of the highest energy prices in Europe, and the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran means that more people than ever are feeling the pinch.
And for an increasing number of British politicians – and one American president – those energy woes have an obvious solution: drill, baby, drill.
As costs rise, the center-right Conservative Party and the right-wing Reform UK have moved their positions closer to U.S. President Donald Trump. Even some in the Labour Party are weighing a move to allow new oil and gas extraction off Scotland’s North Sea coast. Wes Streeting, one of the hopefuls to replace the beleaguered Keir Starmer as prime minister, told The Sunday Times that he is in favor of granting new drilling licenses and that he thinks Mr. Starmer’s government will soon follow.
Why We Wrote This
Skyrocketing energy costs have the United Kingdom looking for solutions, and many say there’s an obvious one: more drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea. But does the data support that? And even if it did, does the public really want to “drill, baby, drill”?
“We’ve also got to listen to what [the union] is saying,” he told the Times. “Listen to what the workforce is saying. And listen to what the public are saying.”
But while enthusiasm for tapping the North Sea might be growing among political movers and shakers, it is far from clear whether drilling would be an effective solution for British energy needs – or whether the British public even supports doubling down on fossil fuel consumption. While British politicians might be ready to embrace more drilling in the North Sea, they might prove to be courting only a small, if noisy, minority of the public.
Concerns over energy security
It is clear, experts say, that there is a growing public anxiety surrounding energy security. The start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the latest conflict in the Middle East have caused several shocks to the energy market in recent years.
“There is a growing awareness about vulnerability of our energy,” says Elinor Bale, a climate program officer at the Conservative Environment Network in London. “There has been an increasing call from the public for oil and gas, very much from the Iran crisis. We’re seeing supply chains going and economic implications across the country of energy prices rising.”
Given the situation, the expansion of North Sea drilling might appear to be a tailor-made solution. But while the U.K.’s energy resources in the region have been fruitful over the past several decades, they are now largely tapped out. British government data estimates the national supply of oil and gas left in the North Sea – including deposits that aren’t yet mature enough to be developed – to be no more than 20% of its former total. Environmental watchdogs such as the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit put the remainder at about half that.
The remaining reserves are also located in places where it’s more difficult to drill, pushing up operating costs, says Bob Ward, policy and communications director at Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change in London. “They’re only really economically viable when [the] market price is high, and therefore when consumer prices are high. In fact, if the price of oil and gas goes down, I’m not convinced that there’ll be a huge amount of further development in the North Sea, because it’s just not seen as economically viable.”
Though both the Conservatives and Reform UK promise, if elected, to increase drilling in the North Sea and repeal the government’s current ban against new licenses, neither offers details about what the results of such a shift would mean for the public or the economy. (Claire Coutinho, the Conservative shadow energy secretary, did say in Parliament in March that a major gas field could be brought online by the end of the year, and “could produce enough gas to heat more than 1.5 million homes.” But she did not say what that estimate was based on, or how long the proposed supply would last.)
And even if new drilling projects were developed, it’s unlikely that new licenses issued now could alleviate financial woes in the short term. Research from the North Sea Transition Authority, the official body charged with licensing and regulating the U.K.’s oil and gas industries, puts the average time between the discovery of fuel deposits and first production at five years.
Even if it appeared productive to explore the North Sea for more energy, polling indicates that the public is not motivated by proposals for new drilling projects. In an April 9 YouGov poll, 38% of people in England and Wales said they were in favor of the government’s ban on new drilling, while 39% were against.
Frank Augstein/AP/File
There’s also evidence to suggest that the public would prefer to focus on renewables to secure Britain’s energy, rather than oil and gas. Respondents in a different April YouGov poll of British adults favored prioritizing transitioning to renewable energy over maximizing the U.K.’s existing oil and gas reserves at 62% to 26%.
“I’d say that it’s a lot better to stop drilling in the North Sea,” says Nicholas Baron, a university-aged Manchester resident. “It’s partially a matter of climate science and partially a matter of this planet only has enough resources for however many people there are.”
Carrying the flag for fossil fuels
Some voters are still keen to trust oil and gas, simply because they are familiar with it, says Ms. Bale, of the Conservative Environment Network. “It’s not necessarily that there’s not support for renewables,” she says. “I think there is [support], but [renewables are] kind of that new scary thing. Oil and gas have been around for years, and people know what they get with it.”
They also inspire a tinge of loyalty, she says. “There is a patriotic feeling for some towards oil and gas. We’ve seen how much it benefited our economy in the 1980s.”
The right-wing Reform UK, which sees such voters as part of its key base, wants to tap into such emotions. The drilling question is being pushed by the party’s leadership as a “culture war” issue, says Matthew Paterson, a professor of international politics at Manchester University who focuses on the politics of climate change.
“It’s lumped in with trans rights, LGBTQ stuff, anti-racism: all of that bundle of things that Reform attack routinely,” he says.
This, in turn, has triggered a wider shift across British politics. The Conservatives, keen to win back voters who have drifted to Reform UK in recent years, have shifted their own position in a bid to appeal to them, including on the environment, says Mr. Paterson.
But he warns that party politics don’t necessarily reflect public attitudes.
“It’s never more than about 10% of the population – 15%, the absolute outside – for whom this sort of anti-net-zero, anti-climate action has any strong appeal,” he says. “Nobody is voting Reform because of their net-zero stance.”