Kemi Badenoch has accused John Swinney of ‘running scared’ from the Greens over his party’s failure to back two controversial oil and gas developments.

Speaking during a visit to Scotland’s oil capital, the Conservative Party leader urged voters to turn the upcoming by-election in Aberdeen South into a ‘referendum’ on the future of the North Sea industries.

The licences for the Jackdaw and Rosebank oil and gas fields in the North Sea have been in a state of legal limbo since January 2025, when a Scottish court ruled that a previous decision by the UK government to allow the developments was unlawful.

The SNP has steadfastly refused to support either development despite the risk to jobs in the North-East and UK energy security if the schemes remain blocked. 

And yesterday Ms Badenoch said: ‘John Swinney is running scared of the Scottish Greens. We had a vote in [Westminster] parliament this week on the North Sea and the SNP didn’t turn up for it. 

'They simply don’t care or they are scared. They had a chance to support Rosebank and Jackdaw and they refused to. So, whenever he says he is supporting the sector he is speaking out of both sides of his mouth. He’s done nothing to help it.’

The SNP minority government is likely to be dependent on the independence supporting Scottish Greens to get much of its legislation through Holyrood in the coming session.

Earlier this week the House of Commons voted 108 to 323 to throw out a Tory amendment to the King’s Speech which pressed ministers to approve drilling at Rosebank and Jackdaw oil fields.

Ms Badenoch said that with the SNP having a presumption against new drilling in the North Sea, and the Labour government in Westminster banning new developments, the Conservatives were the only party backing the industry.

She was campaigning in Aberdeen alongside Scottish Tories leader Russell Findlay and candidate Douglas Lumsden.

Ms Badenoch said it was ‘lunacy’ that Labour and the SNP were opposed to new drilling in the North Sea when the sector is shedding an estimated 1,000 jobs per month.

She added that voters could tell both parties ‘enough is enough’ by backing the Scottish Conservatives in what she insisted will be a two-horse race between them and the SNP.

She said voters should vote ‘tactically on multiple counts’.

She added: ‘Even if you’re not a Conservative voter, if you want a pro United Kingdom MP… then you should vote for Douglas.’

The Aberdeen South seat was vacated by the SNP’s former Westminster leader Stephen Flynn, who was elected to Holyrood this month and has been appointed economy secretary in First Minister John Swinney’s cabinet.

Votes for the Reform party helped the SNP and Mr Flynn win the Holyrood contest in the similar seat, with the Tories just 1,000 votes short of defeating him.

Mr Findlay warned a vote for any party other than the Scottish Conservatives now risked handing victory to the SNP in the by-election on June 18.

Ms Badenoch also reiterated her opposition to Westminster’s decision to lift some oil sanctions on Russia in order to help UK consumers and businesses with rising fuel prices.

She added: ‘The UK government won’t allow us to drill our own oil and gas but are happy to buy oil from Russia. 

'Money from that is going to be spent attacking the people of Ukraine, killing their men and women and their children. There is something immoral about that.’

In the King’s Speech, the UK government confirmed its manifesto commitment not to issue North Sea licences to explore new fields, arguing that they do not provide energy security or lower bills.

Labour has also increased the previous Conservative government’s windfall taxes on the industry, meaning North Sea operators pay a marginal tax rate of up to 78 per cent.

While the government has allowed production in already-licensed areas to continue, the aim is to turn the North Sea, in Miliband’s words, into a ‘clean energy powerhouse’ through offshore wind and carbon capture.

North Sea gas production still meets somewhere between 40 and 50 per cent of UK demand.

Only around a fifth of North Sea oil production is used at home. The rest is exported because the UK lacks the refining capacity to process the low-sulphur crude the North Sea produces.

Under its Energy Independence Bill, the government intends to accelerate the development of offshore wind, hydrogen and grid technologies.

Mrs Badenoch encouraged voters to back Douglas Lumsden, who announced his candidacy for Westminster just days after being elected to the Scottish Parliament, saying he would be ‘one less nationalist MP’.

She said: ‘We want this to be a referendum on oil and gas.’

She said that while ‘Reform talk a good game’ they ‘don’t actually do anything’.

She said: ‘This is the fourth time I’ve made a trip to Aberdeen and that is because I care about oil and gas, I care about this industry, I care about this city.

‘I get on the plane, and people ask me to save Aberdeen; they tell me that Aberdeen is dying, that Aberdeen is a shell of what it used to be.

‘We need someone who cares about Aberdeen.’

SNP candidate Richard Thomson said Mrs Badenoch’s comments were the ‘height of hypocrisy’ which ‘no one in Aberdeen should be taken in by at all’.

‘In government, the Tories gave us a merry-go-round of Energy Ministers who only had one thing in common, and that was to continue siphoning off billions from Scotland’s oil and gas sector.

‘In contrast, the SNP has created a new role within our newly formed government with the energy minister reporting directly to the First Minister.

‘No one should forget that it was the last Tory Government in which Kemi Badenoch was a minister which introduced the disastrous Energy Profits Levy, and created the cliff-edge for the North Sea which Labour now want to push us off.’

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: ‘Decisions on consenting for offshore oil and gas projects, as well as those on licensing and the associated fiscal regime, are matters that are currently reserved to the UK Government.

‘We continue to call on the UK Government to approach decisions for North Sea oil and gas projects on a rigorously evidence-led, case by case, basis with climate compatibility and energy security key considerations.’