MORE politicians have signed a letter urging Andy Burnham to reject the Rosebank oil and gas project, bringing the total number of MPs and MSPs backing the call to 90 yesterday.

Exploitation of the North Sea field would produce more than 250 million tonnes of CO2 – equivalent to 70 per cent of Britain’s annual emissions, they told the Prime Minister, making “a mockery” of Britain’s climate commitments.

The case for Rosebank has completely collapsed on both climate and economic grounds, the group of cross-party MPs wrote.

Labour backbenchers have threatened to revolt if Mr Burnham presses ahead with new North Sea oil drilling projects, warning him that this could mark the end of his honeymoon period with voters.

The open letter argues against the claims most often made for Rosebank — that it would reduce consumer bills and provide energy security for Britain.

The signatories say that the vast majority of the field’s oil reserves would be sold on the international market, thus doing nothing for British energy sovereignty or the prices paid by households.

The majority of Rosebank’s development costs would fall on British taxpayers, while hundreds of millions of pounds in profits would flow to Norway’s “obscenely wealthy oil fund,” they add.

With the International Energy Agency warning that reapproving Rosebank would have only a minimal effect on Britain’s energy security, MPs say that exploiting the field would only reduce dependence on gas imports by 1 per cent.

Project developers have also faced criticism over links to Israeli fuel conglomerate Delek Group, which the United Nations has accused of human rights violations in Palestine.

Climate Cymru and 20 other organisations, including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth Pontypridd and Oxfam Cymru, also called on the Prime Minister on Thursday to urgently rule out approval of Rosebank and any further North Sea oil drilling.