Viaro Energy Strategy, page-13

Exactly!
The biggest being, that as much as miliband et al want to virtue signal on oil and gas, the economy literally stops running without it! And labour’s main argument was that they need growth to generate more tax revenue for their spending plans.
The OBR were pretty forthright on the spending plans during the election with the main point being that borrowing more money was not an option so reform, cuts and growth were the only way forward.
Importing more oil and gas does not fit into any of those categories so they have little choice but to allow existing plans to develop, and that can’t happen unless they get funding and no one is funding new developments under the current proposals.
One other thing to note is that labour said they wanted a Norway style model. Norway has a 78% tax BUT they also provide a very generous tax allowance for development. The unions see this as a way forward. The oil and gas industry can live with that as well. And it fits the labour narrative that they can build a sovereign fund on the back of it ….just like Norway.