FIRST MINISTER Humza Yousaf branded Labour a “wolf in a red rosette” today as he took the side of oil and gas executives in slamming the party’s tax plans.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s intention to raise the windfall tax on “excess profits” in the fossil fuel industry from 75 per cent to 78 per cent, extend the tax until 2029 and raise an estimated £10.8 billion for “green spending” has already been heavily criticised by the oil and gas industry bosses, who claim it could cost as many as 40,000 jobs.
In a campaign speech today in Britain’s fossil fuel capital Aberdeen, Mr Yousaf lent the oil and gas executives his support, rounding on what he called “Labour’s aggressive tax plans.”
He said: “Labour’s plans to increase this to pay for new nuclear power plants in England is plain wrong and will cost tens of thousands, if not more, jobs in the north-east.”
Labour’s shadow Scottish secretary Ian Murray hit back at the comments, saying: “It beggars belief that Humza Yousaf thinks that a person earning more than £28,500 deserves to pay more tax but energy giants earning billions in profits from soaring bills should pay less.”
A spokesperson for Scottish fair transition activist group This Is Rigged told the Star: “Our government’s reluctance to point the finger where it should be pointed has maybe never been so blatant.
“To call a windfall tax on an industry which makes profits in the hundreds of billions — and is accelerating us towards irreversible climate breakdown — ‘aggressive’ is not only categorically untrue but a disgraceful display of disrespect to the people all over Scotland and the world over who are having their way of life threatened by climate collapse.
“Oil and gas giants would have us believe that their concern is for their workers — as if that has ever been a priority for them.
“If they cared about their workers, or the people of Scotland, they would fast-track a fair transition for oil and gas workers into renewables, as clearly outlined by Friends of the Earth and North Sea workers.
“There is no way that oil and gas giants can begin to give back what they have taken from all of us, but some honest and forthcoming co-operation on a windfall tax would be a start.”
