Backlash for ‘Red Ed’ Miliband after he stated BP oil income are ‘morally and economically fallacious’
Ed Miliband was locked in a bitter war of words with the oil industry on Tuesday after branding BP’s profits ‘morally and economically wrong’.
The Energy Secretary accused the company of ‘profiting from a crisis’ and said the Government was right to tax the ‘windfall’ generated by higher oil and gas prices.
But critics said the tax on profits of firms operating in the North Sea was costing jobs and jeopardising the UK’s energy security as vast swathes of supplies go untapped.
On Tuesday, BP revealed its profits more than doubled in the first three months of the year as the Iran war sent the price of oil and gas soaring.
As crude oil topped $112 a barrel for the first time since late March, the company posted first quarter profits of $3.2billion (£2.4billion).
This was up from $1.4billion (£1billion) in the same period last year and its biggest quarterly haul since 2023.
The profits come as motorists face eye-watering prices at the pumps and households grapple with higher food and energy bills well into next year.
Mr Miliband posted on X: ‘Profiting from a crisis is morally and economically wrong. That’s why we’re taxing these windfall profits to help fund support with the cost of living.
Ed Miliband branded BP’s profits, boosted by soaring oil prices, ‘morally and economically wrong’
BP posted profits of £2.4bn for the first three months of the year. Pictured: A section of the BP Eastern Trough Area Project
‘And [this is] why the Tories, Reform and the SNP are utterly wrong to oppose the windfall tax.’
But Tory energy spokesman Claire Coutinho said: ‘The windfall tax means thousands of British workers are losing their jobs and we are losing our North Sea energy security.’
Mr Miliband’s tweet was later amended ‘to make the political message clearer’, according to sources close to him.
The updated message said: ‘It would be completely wrong for a government to stand by and allow companies to make excess profits from a war.’
Pointing out BP makes the majority of its money outside the UK, Russell Borthwick, boss of Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce, which represents firms and workers in the industry, said: ‘Energy companies pay their taxes where due on the profits they make.
‘Ed Miliband knows this, but he is peddling a deliberately dishonest narrative in relation to the North Sea. Having already deleted his original post, he should now retract his comments in full and apologise to workers.
‘The [North Sea] basin should be providing secure energy to homes and businesses in a global crisis, but it has been rendered uninvestible by a punitive 78 per cent headline tax rate.’
The so-called Energy Profits Levy was introduced by the Tories after oil and gas prices surged following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But it has been raised and extended by Labour, leaving the headline tax rate of 78 per cent on profits which will last until 2030.
Labour has also banned new drilling in the North Sea so vast reserves in fields such as Jackdaw and Rosebank go untapped.
