The Tory Dependence on Fossil Fuels

Implausibly, coal not dole could be the Tory slogan for their campaign in Cumbria at the next election. Michael Gove's approval of the first deep pit mine in 30 years. Ever the self-identified pragmatist, Gove has defended his decision because of the jobs it would create and establishing a reliable supply of coking coal for the steel industry means we don't have to buy from Vladimir Putin any more. The Conservative Friends of Primary Industry, who'd have thought it? Not the best look when the Tories boast about how much a world leader in net zero their government is, but there's another set of optics they are more bothered about.

Disinterring King Coal from his crypt is one moment of a pattern of behaviour. We had Rishi Sunak refusing to attend COP27, until it became politic for him to do so. The Tories as a whole (but not the Prime Minister himself) are very keen on fracking, and smart under the ban Boris Johnson introduced and public opinion has since enforced. And then we have the energy price guarantee. Earlier in the year while Sunak was chancellor he set up a supposed levy on the fossil fuel giants to freeze bills. By the time of her brief period in the Downing Street spotlight, energy was costing so much that Liz Truss was forced to act. Her scheme was to borrow on the never never and pay these funds over to the suppliers to fix the unit price. She then stupidly sunk her premiership and underlined the doom upon the Tories. When Sunak was coronated he continued with the U-turn on tax cuts for the rich brought in by Jeremy Hunt, but crucially kept the public subsidy for energy, categorically ruling out making the likes of BP and Royal Dutch Shell pay out their surplus profits. Likewise, his tax break for oil exploration stayed in place. What have these companies got on the Tories?

The party is well funded by oil and gas companies. Reporting prior to the 2019 election, The Graun found fossil fuel firms had spent over £5m lobbying MPs. The recipients of this aid were mostly Conservative members. Nadhim Zahawi, for instance, was on a £20k monthly salary as Chief Strategy Officer for Gulf Keystone Petroleum from October 2015 to August 2017, when it increased to £30k. He received a £116k golden goodbye when he became a minister in 2018. An egregious example when other loyalties could be bought for much less, such as the £10k Gove got in 2010, and the relative pittances enjoyed by Tory climate change denialists who concidentally are in receipt of similar monies. Tories enjoy incentives to stay sweet on fossil fuels, especially now many of them will look for new careers before long.

Much has also been made of Truss's oil links. But she last worked for Shell 22 years ago, a decade before she entered the Commons. Her leadership campaign was part funded by fracking interests and they were duly rewarded, but her enthusiasm for launching a new wave of drilling in the North Sea requires a bit more explanation. As does Sunak, whose spent his career as a City slicker but has bent over backwards to help the industry while in office - his system of tax reliefs being one example. His family have an indirect commercial interest in Shell and other Indian-based fossil fuel firms. Is it as easy and as crude as joining the dots?

It might seem that way, but it comes back to the particular constellation of class forces the Tories articulate and cohere. Principally, the City. In the first place, tax receipts from the North Sea bankrolled Thatcher's closure of nationalised industries and her subsequent attacks on the labour movement in the 1980s. And while there is still money to be made - some 3.2bn barrels remain unexploited under the sea bed - Tory attitudes, conscious and instinctual, are more driven by what's good for the City. Keeping it at the top of the global casino has, historically, meant the state is very hands off when it comes to the capital flows that sluice on through. Britain's companies and property markets are fair game, and offer convenient holding pens outside of the jurisdictions from whence the capital came. Oil and fossil fuels are and will remain strategically vital for the rest of the century, notwithstanding advances in batteries, fusion, and renewables. Keeping the regulatory environment light touch if not positively welcoming for carbon polluting industries tells them London is always open for their business, even if they're not interested in direct investments in exploiting Britain's substantial coal, gas, and oil reserves. And it has proven very successful so far, with energy oligarchs from Russia and the Gulf's absolutist tyrannies coming to town and finding the doors held open to the country's elite. For the Tories, petrochemicals are more than just about money, it's absolutely central to the City's soft power and therefore the global significance of the UK's capitalist class. Whose standing isn't harmed by having two of the world's largest oil concerns domiciled here either.

This helps explain the Tory politics of fossil fuels. It goes way beyond the role they play in the country's energy mix and the junkets, freebies, and consultancies they dole out to friendly politicians. It's central to the alignment of bourgeois politics and their state. This means environmental concerns about oil drilling, coal mining, fracking, are immediately questions of class that cuts to the quick of their power, and puts the Tory clamour for repressive legislation against Extinction Rebellion/Just Stop Oil in an entirely different light.

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