This column appears as part of the Winds of Change newsletter

The big oil and gas story this week is that fossil fuel giant BP has recorded a more than doubling of profits following high energy prices due to the Iran war.

This trading, described by BP as “exceptional”, has happened over months in which there has been plenty of noise from the SNP in favour of scrapping the energy profits levy (EPL), also known as the windfall tax. Only just over a month ago, in the midst of war in the Middle East, the SNP and Tories criticised UK Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, for not axing the energy windfall tax in her spring statement.

Then, last week, on BBC Question Time, SNP minister Mairi McAllan called out Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar on Labour government taxes “that are undermining the industry”.

“Offshore Energies UK has been absolutely clear that the energy profits levy, which your colleagues have been overseeing in London, has been going on for far too long and is causing about 1,000 job losses a month. Will you commit that the energy profits levy will be scrapped, because it is undermining the very investment we need for the transition?”

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None of us want to see oil and gas jobs lost and I know some might say that a jobs crisis in the North East is the wrong time to argue for keeping the tax. But, isn’t the middle of a war-driven energy price crisis absolutely the wrong time to call to drop it?

Friends of the Earth Scotland’s oil and gas campaigns manager Rosie Hampton said: “Instead of making sure that the windfall........

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