An Aberdeen Labour councillor said the “negativity” of local business leaders will be to blame if his party does not select the Granite City as the headquarters for GB Energy.
Tauqeer Malik, leader of the Labour group on Aberdeen City Council, told The Herald newspaper that the actions of Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce (AGCC) would make it “extremely difficult” for the new UK government to have “confidence with business” in the north east.
GB Energy emerged as a key Labour manifesto pledge, and the party has long promised to base the publicly-owned company in Scotland.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer unveiled more details of Labour’s plans for GB Energy this week, including a partnership with the Crown Estate and its first chairman.
But the government has yet to reveal any details over where GB Energy will be based.
AGCC has launched a campaign for GB Energy to be based in Aberdeen, which has received the backing of more than 700 local business leaders.
But Councillor Malik said comments made by senior AGCC leaders accusing Labour of being “traitors” over its windfall tax plans would have undermined confidence in the city.
“They even suggested Labour was happy to cast tens of thousands of hard working men and women on the scrapheap and place a world class Scottish industry on death row,” Malik said.
“Now they are advocating for GB Energy to come to Aberdeen.
© Supplied by -“I said at the time that if Labour were to get elected to office, it would be extremely difficult for an incoming Labour government to have confidence with businesses in Aberdeen that were so hostile to them in opposition that they portrayed them as Traitors.
“For my part, I will continue to lobby Labour at the highest level to ensure GB Energy is located in Aberdeen but if GB Energy does not come to Aberdeen then perhaps the real traitors to Aberdeen is not Labour, but Aberdeen Grampian Chamber of Commerce who undermined confidence in Aberdeen Energy sector by their negativity towards what Labour was actually proposing in its manifesto.”
Chamber aligned with industry concerns
In response, the AGCC pointed to a motion Councillor Malik moved at last year’s Labour conference criticising his own party’s energy policy.
The motion said it would be “economically illiterate to import oil and gas from overseas when we have oil and gas on our doorstep”.
An AGCC spokesperson told The Herald that the chamber is aligned with industry, investors, and unions in its concerns about the impact of Labour policies on the North Sea oil and gas sector.
“Indeed, there is so much alignment on this issue, that even Councillor Malik described Labour’s plans as ‘economically illiterate’ prior to the election campaign,” the spokesperson said.
“The pace at which the new government is taking forward its plans for Great British Energy is both necessary and encouraging – and we agree with Councillor Malik that it should be headquartered in Aberdeen, where it can be co-created with industry.”
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