British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has signaled he may approve more oil drilling in the North Sea, a sharp reversal from his party's 2024 ban on new licenses, and one that came days after a phone call with President Trump.

Trump claimed from the Oval Office this week that Burnham told him he would "open up the North Sea" during a conversation shortly after the new prime minister took office last week. Burnham has not denied the substance of Trump's account. Instead, he acknowledged publicly on Thursday that the North Sea holds a crucial "resource" for Britain and said he plans to take a "pragmatic approach" to it.

The shift matters because it lands squarely on one of the sharpest fault lines in British energy policy. In 2024, the Labour government committed to blocking any new oil and gas drilling licenses in the North Sea, a pledge tied to its net-zero emissions target for 2050. Now, barely a week into office, Labour's own prime minister appears to be walking that commitment back, and crediting economic pressure, not climate ideology, as the reason.

Trump framed the call as a win, and Burnham didn't push back

Trump's remarks left little room for ambiguity. The Washington Examiner reported that the president told reporters:

"If you use the North Sea, the U.K. will be a really rich country. I cannot get the point across. The new gentleman, when I spoke to him, said he's going to open up the North Sea."

Official readouts of the call did not reveal whether the North Sea came up. But Burnham's own public comments tracked closely with Trump's version. Bloomberg reported Burnham saying:

"When people are struggling, we can't ignore that. Hence me indicating that to the president."

That phrasing, "indicating that to the president", stops short of a formal policy announcement. But it also stops short of a denial. Burnham did not dispute Trump's characterization. He did not say Trump misunderstood. He pointed to economic hardship and said he had communicated something to the president about it.

Rumors had circulated even before Burnham took office that he would lift the ban on new drilling licenses. His allies moved quickly to contain the story. Deputy party leader Lucy Powell told the BBC that Burnham "has been clear he stands by the policies in our manifesto." But "standing by the manifesto" and refusing to approve any new drilling are not necessarily the same thing, and Powell's statement did not address the two major projects already in the pipeline.

Jackdaw and Rosebank offer Burnham a policy escape hatch

Two gasfield projects, Jackdaw, developed by Shell, and Rosebank, developed by Equinor, sit at the center of the question. Both received drilling license approvals in 2022 and 2023, respectively. Both had those approvals overturned by the Court of Session in Edinburgh, Scotland's highest civil court, which ruled the original approvals were unlawful because they failed to fully assess the environmental impacts, including the carbon emissions from burning any oil and gas produced.

But the court did not shut the projects down entirely. It allowed Shell and Equinor to continue work, including drilling wells, while the government reviewed whether to permit oil and gas production in the regions. That distinction is critical. Burnham could approve production at Jackdaw and Rosebank without technically issuing any "new" licenses, threading a needle between the manifesto commitment and the economic reality Trump highlighted.

The approach would mirror a pattern the previous Labour government quietly established. Last summer, the U.K. government released new guidance on environmental impact assessments for offshore oil and gas developers that, despite the party's green rhetoric, left the door open to development. The gap between what Labour says about fossil fuels and what it actually permits has been widening for months. Burnham may simply be the first to say it out loud.

Trump's influence on foreign energy policy extends well beyond the North Sea. His administration has pushed through trade and economic measures despite institutional resistance at home, and the pattern of allied nations adjusting their own policies in response has become difficult to ignore.

A 78 percent tax rate and billions of barrels still in the ground

The economic case for North Sea drilling is not subtle. Offshore Energies UK, an industry body, estimated in March 2025 that an additional 2 to 3 billion barrels of oil equivalent could be available in the North Sea by 2050. Fossil fuel advocates argue that increased drilling would dramatically reduce Britain's reliance on foreign energy sources, including from the Middle East.

But the Labour government has also made North Sea extraction punishingly expensive. The Financial Times reported that the U.K. raised taxes on oil and gas profits from 35 percent to 38 percent, pushing the total tax rate for firms operating in the North Sea to roughly 78 percent. Companies deciding whether to invest billions in new production must weigh that burden against an uncertain regulatory environment and a government that, until last week, was publicly committed to phasing out the industry.

That tension, between wanting the revenue and jobs that come from drilling and wanting the political credit that comes from opposing it, defines the Labour Party's energy problem. Burnham's "pragmatic approach" language suggests he understands the contradiction, even if his party has not figured out how to resolve it publicly.

Courts have been a recurring battleground on energy questions. In the United States, the Ninth Circuit recently dismissed a youth climate lawsuit that sought to block Trump's energy orders, one of several legal challenges that have failed to halt the administration's pro-drilling agenda.

Burnham's allies are already trying to split the difference

Powell's statement to the BBC was carefully worded. She did not say Burnham would block Jackdaw and Rosebank. She did not say the government would refuse to act on the court's allowance for continued drilling work. She said Burnham "stands by the policies in our manifesto", a formulation broad enough to cover almost any outcome.

That kind of studied ambiguity is familiar to anyone who watches politicians try to reverse course without admitting it. The manifesto banned new licenses. It did not explicitly address what happens when a court overturns old licenses but permits work to continue. Burnham's team appears to be building a case that approving production at existing sites is different from issuing new exploration permits.

Whether that distinction holds politically is another question. Environmental groups and the Labour left will see any approval of North Sea production as a betrayal of the party's climate commitments. Industry groups will see anything short of full reopening as inadequate, particularly given the 78 percent tax burden that already discourages investment.

Domestically, the political dynamics echo fights playing out in the United States, where federal judges have blocked administration policy goals on everything from food stamps to energy, forcing the executive branch to find alternative paths forward.

Burnham has not released a formal energy agenda or specific policy details regarding North Sea drilling. No timeline has been set for a decision on Jackdaw, Rosebank, or the broader question of new licenses. The gap between Trump's confident claim, "he's going to open up the North Sea", and the cautious hedging from Burnham's allies remains wide.

Meanwhile, Trump's political opponents on both sides of the Atlantic continue to face setbacks. Dan Goldman, who served as Trump's impeachment counsel, was recently ousted in a New York Democratic primary, a reminder that opposing Trump's agenda has not always translated into political durability for those who made it their brand.

When economic reality forces a left-of-center government to quietly adopt the energy policy it spent years denouncing, the argument was never really about the science. It was about who would get the blame for saying yes.