Weeks after taking office as UK Prime Minister, Andy Burnham is facing growing international and domestic backlash over plans to rapidly approve the reopening of two stalled North Sea oil and gas projects, with campaigners warning the move would violate the United Kingdom’s binding international legal obligations due to key links between a major stakeholder and illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The two projects at the center of the debate are the Rosebank field, located off the Shetland Islands in the North Atlantic, and the Jackdaw field off Scotland’s North Sea coast. Both developments were originally approved by the former Conservative government between 2022 and 2023, but court challenges overturned those approvals in 2025, leaving the final decision to Burnham’s new Labour administration.
Ithaca Energy, which holds a 20% stake in the Rosebank project, is majority-owned by Israeli energy conglomerate Delek Group. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights includes Delek Group on its official database of companies identified as having links to illegal West Bank settlements, activities that raise “particular human rights concerns.” Further, Delek holds a hundreds-of-millions-of-pounds contract to supply fuel to the Israeli military during its ongoing military campaign in Gaza that has been widely labeled as genocide by human rights groups.
Investigative reporting by UK outlet The Ferret has found that since 2020, Delek Group has extracted more than $1 billion in dividends from its Ithaca Energy stake across six of the UK’s 10 largest oil and gas fields. If Rosebank is approved, Delek stands to gain an additional £200 million in future profits from the project.
Karla McLaren, government and political relations manager at Amnesty International UK, told Middle East Eye that approving the project would directly contradict the UK’s long-stated commitments to upholding international law. “It would totally fly in the face of the UK’s international legal responsibilities for the UK to be granting concessions or contracting with any company that has enabled, facilitated or profited from the construction of Israel’s settlements, which are war crimes,” McLaren said.
The planned approval also comes at a time of unprecedented climate pressure, as Europe grapples with record-breaking heatwaves. It also follows the suppression of a 2025 joint UK intelligence assessment that warned the climate crisis poses a severe, immediate threat to UK national security.
The push to reopen the North Sea fields has already drawn enthusiastic support from US President Donald Trump, who celebrated the expected move in a post on his Truth Social platform, claiming Burnham’s decision would transform the UK “from a Poverty Stricken Disaster, to one of the Richest Countries anywhere in the World!” Trump had previously criticized Keir Starmer, Burnham’s predecessor as Labour Prime Minister, for refusing to advance the projects, telling The Telegraph in an April interview that “all Starmer wants is costly windmills that are driving your energy prices through the roof” and repeating his signature rallying cry of “drill baby drill.”
The projects had been blocked by former UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, but mounting political pressure led to Miliband’s reassignment to the role of Foreign Secretary in Burnham’s recent cabinet reshuffle, clearing the way for a potential approval. The White House has already expressed deep concern over Miliband’s appointment, with Trump having previously attacked Miliband as a “net zero zealot.”
From his first days in office, Burnham has moved to align his administration closely with Trump’s foreign policy priorities. On July 20, the day he took office, Burnham called Trump to confirm that securing shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz was “at the top of his agenda.” Just two days later, his administration approved the continued use of UK military bases for US airstrikes targeting Iran.
Rudy Schulkind, a political campaigner for Greenpeace UK, told MEE that the upcoming decision will stand as one of the most defining tests of Burnham’s premiership. “Caving to demands from Donald Trump and the fossil fuel lobby by backing Rosebank would signal that powerful corporate interests still hold more sway than the public interest – it would also undermine the UK’s climate commitments and contradict Burnham’s own pledge to uphold international law in Palestine, given Rosebank’s links to Israeli energy company Delek,” Schulkind said.
The controversy comes shortly after Burnham issued a public apology for the Labour Party’s “initial response” to the crisis in Gaza, acknowledging that the party “need to do better.” His predecessor, Keir Starmer, faced widespread international condemnation in October 2023 after stating that Israel had the right to cut off water and electricity to Gaza, a form of collective punishment explicitly banned under international law. When Starmer avoided calling for an immediate ceasefire during Israel’s military offensive that began after October 7, 2023, Burnham – then serving as Mayor of Manchester – broke with party leadership alongside London Mayor Sadiq Khan to publicly demand a ceasefire.
While Burnham has acknowledged the “unbearable suffering” in Gaza as “a scar on our collective conscience,” he has stopped short of labeling the military campaign a genocide, saying the determination must be left to international courts. Political analysts note his recent apology was crafted to address voter anger over Labour’s Gaza policy, after a study found that more than half of former Labour voters who switched to smaller center or left-wing parties cited the party’s Gaza stance as a key factor in their decision.
Patrick Galey, head of investigations at climate and human rights charity Global Witness, told MEE that Burnham appears to believe voter anger over Labour’s previous policies can be resolved with public relations adjustments, but “actions speak louder than words.” Galey explained that approving the North Sea projects is widely understood within political circles as a concession to the fossil fuel industry, a tactic the Labour Party has used in an attempt to appease powerful corporate interests.
Data from 2024 investigative work by outlet DeSmog supports this framing: major oil and gas firms are represented by lobbyists who have donated more than £300,000 to the Labour Party, while the opposition Conservative Party received 40% of all its donations during the 2024 election campaign’s first week from fossil fuel interests. “A lot of our political class are bought by the oil and gas lobby,” Galey said, adding that this proximity to fossil fuel interests shapes how political leaders understand climate change – a dynamic he says is on clear display as Burnham prioritizes economic growth even as neighboring France and Spain face catastrophic wildfires driven by rising global temperatures.
Stella Swain, youth and student officer for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, told MEE that approving the projects would make a “mockery” of Burnham’s recent apology for Labour’s previous Gaza stance. Mothin Ali, deputy leader of the UK Green Party, echoed that criticism, telling MEE: “Burnham’s half-baked apology for Labour’s complicity in the genocide in Gaza is meaningless if he refuses to back it up with concrete actions.”
While Burnham’s government has framed the move as a solution to the UK’s ongoing cost of living crisis and a way to strengthen national energy security amid global market instability caused by tensions with Iran, Galey argues that only foreign corporations and their wealthy shareholders will actually benefit from the decision. Because all oil and gas produced from the North Sea fields is sold on the global open market, prices are set by international geopolitical forces – including conflicts stoked by Trump’s policy in the Middle East, which the UK is supporting through its hosting of US airstrikes from British bases.
Galey added that since Brexit, the UK has grown far more dependent on the United States for energy imports, in contrast to countries like Spain that have invested heavily in domestic renewable energy. That investment has given Spain “political freedom,” Galey explained, allowing Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to push back against Trump’s demands on Palestine and Iran, because energy independence means “you don’t need to pander to the whims of the mob boss in the White House.”
Galey pointed out that fossil fuel companies often frame regional conflicts and energy crises as unforeseen events that require expanded oil and gas exploration, but these crises are not accidental side effects of a fossil fuel-based energy system – they are inherent features of it. Lauren MacDonald, lead campaigner for the activist group Stop Rosebank, emphasized that approving the project would be a morally indefensible choice. “Greenlighting the oil field would be a morally reprehensible decision that turns a blind eye to the fact that the project could bolster Delek’s activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories – which the UN flagged for human rights violations,” MacDonald said. “The UK government is well aware of these risks, and has even been warned that it could breach its own obligations under international law if it allows the field to go ahead.”
The UK’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero declined to comment on the specific projects, saying it cannot prejudice future decision-making. Both Delek Group and Ithaca Energy also did not respond to requests for comment from Middle East Eye.
