The United Kingdom continues to stumble through a crippling years-long energy crisis that is rapidly deindustrialising the country, under a government that believes the only answer “is to go further and faster on renewables “, prompting President Trump to plead with the country to consider acting in its own interest for once.
The United Kingdom should use some of the bountiful energy under its feet, and under its territorial waters, U.S. President Donald Trump said as stories of the energy price crisis dominate the papers in Britain daily, and yet the government refuses to act.
Taking to his Truth Social platform, President Trump told the British government: “Europe is desperate for Energy, and yet the United Kingdom refuses to open North Sea Oil, one of the greatest fields in the World. Tragic”.
President Trump reflected that Aberdeen, the port in Scotland closest to the North Sea gas and oil field and which in the past has been one of the wealthiest cities in the world, “should be booming” from the oil trade. He continued: “Norway sells its North Sea Oil to the U.K. at double the price. They are making a fortune. U.K., which is better situated on the North Sea for purposes of energy than Norway, should, DRILL, BABY, DRILL!!!”.
It’s “absolutely crazy” that the United Kingdom insists on importing energy, at some of the highest prices in the world, President Trump said.
The remarks followed British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer being questioned on the energy crisis in Parliament. Starmer, who appointed green extremist Ed Miliband to his government as energy minister, stuck to the dogmatic party line and refused to be drawn on taking any action whatsoever — which is in his right as Prime Minister commanding Parliament, theoretically a position of great power in the United Kingdom — only replying: “in the long term, the only way to get energy dependence is to go further and faster on renewables and that’s what we’re doing”.
The assertion that switching to renewables improves energy security is a highly questionable one. Britain is enormously rich in unexploited coal, oil, gas, and fracking shale, but the government is ideologically opposed to its use. Its policy is instead to import solar and wind components — quite often from China — switching its old dependence on imported gas to imported panels.
Brexit pioneer and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has pledged to take a different approach to energy, stating that flooding the UK economy with cheap, abundant energy would set Britain on a path to reindustrialisation, presaging growth in jobs and the economy. He said of the present state of affairs: “most of the gas we presently import comes from Montana, where it’s taken out of the ground, it’s liquified, it’s shipped across the Atlantic, it’s re-gassed, and then taken to where it’s got to go… do you think all that process is free?”.
On those within the government, and its supporters, who claim drilling for energy in Britain is pointless because increasing the supply, and having a domestic supply rather than competing for imports, is pointless because it wouldn’t change the unit price, Mr Farage countered: “These people haven’t got a scooby doo [a clue]. They’ve no idea how the world works.
“Produce your own gas, produce your own oil, have cheaper prices, and yes, our aim in the years to come when we get in power… is to have massive, massive production of energy. To become a huge exporter, to have cheap prices, and to reindustrialise Scotland and bring people proper jobs.”
President Trump’s remarks are not the first time the American leader has pointed out to European allies that, actually, the door to economic growth is wide open to those ready to abandon their orthodoxies and grasp opportunities. He again said there are fortunes to be made in the Middle East for whatever allies are ready to step up and take control of the Persian Gulf, a role he said those who gain most out of Strait of Hormuz oil should consider gripping.
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