Labour has discovered a remarkable solution to the problem of having made a promise in 2024: pretending the promise was conditional on winning an election, which they did, which means the promise is now retroactively void.
Andy Burnham is set to announce plans for new North Sea oil and gas drilling, a move that required the party to perform the political equivalent of reversing a car into a petrol station while insisting they were always going forward. The manifesto’s pledge to issue no new licences has been replaced with a pledge to issue new licences, which is technically a different pledge, so legally they have kept their promise to make pledges.
Why would a Labour government abandon climate commitments barely two years after making them? Because Scotland votes, and Scotland has oil workers, and oil workers vote with their wallets, and Labour’s polling in the North East suggests they would drill through their own manifesto if it meant holding a seat.
The party’s messaging is now indistinguishable from a hostage video where the hostage-taker is also the hostage. Burnham will frame this as pragmatism. The Greens will frame it as betrayal. Both are correct. The North Sea will continue being drilled regardless, which means Labour gets the votes from drilling constituencies and the blame from everyone else, a transaction so profitable they should list it on the stock exchange.
The fumes are literal. The apologies will never come.