Oil and Gas Donors Have Given Over £400k to Tories in the Past Year

Posted on the 25 June 2021 by Ecoexperts @TheEcoExperts

How are people reacting?

While some of the donors are yet to react, others have been quick to deny any wrongdoing.

According to DeSmog, Alasdair Locke denied that he tried to influence government policy "in any way beyond supporting industry and government in adopting the highest standards." He also highlighted that he had not met with any ministers or officials in the past nine months.

Upshall also denied that his donations had any influence on government policy and said he had not met with any ministers or officials in recent months.

When contacted by DeSmog, a spokesperson for the Scottish Conservatives said the party will "always stand up for the North Sea oil and gas industry and the 100,000 Scottish jobs it supports."

Despite these claims, only hours after the Tory donations were revealed, scientists, politicians, and activists took to social media to voice their outrage.

Doug Parr, Greenpeace UK Chief Scientist, tweeted that, "this is one of the challenges of delivering zero carbon emissions that don't fit into neat economic models."

Amongst others, environmental and political activist George Monbiot has called out the government, labelling them as 'corrupt'.

No matter which you believe - innocent donations or Tory corruption - we can all be sure that a government leading the charge in the war against climate change should not have accepted this huge sum of money from fossil fuel giants.