MacAskill: We have already seen tragedy in the North Sea

MARX wrote that: “History repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce.” And so it seems set to be for Scotland in the North Sea unless independence is gained, and fast.

Firstly, there was the tragedy of our oil and gas being exploited by foreign multinationals, with revenues going to the UK Treasury. Now, that is being followed by a similar farcical situation with the renewable wealth sited off our shores where both our workers and our nation are but a sideshow. Last week, I watched the BBC Scotland documentary on Piper Alpha and it was both poignant and horrific. The actors playing the workers who survived were superb, capturing the burning hell the workforce faced, and the recollections by bereaved families were heartbreaking.

Film footage and still photographs documented the scale of an inferno which no-one in Scotland who was alive at the time can forget.

The programme also detailed how Lord Cullen’s inquiry uncovered years of neglect, with production dominating and safety trailing in priority. What was worse was that no prosecution followed after the clear failings were disclosed.

Some limited compensation was paid to the survivors and the families of the 167 who died, but it was a pittance in comparison to the profits made.

Four firms were in the joint venture that discovered the Piper oilfield. After the tragedy, Occidental, which had been operating the rigwas the rig’s field operator, paid out and then promptly sold its Scottish oil and gas fields to another multinational, departing never to return.

Progress has been made in some respects. After Cullen’s report, health and safety vastly improved but huge gaps still remain. However, most of all the fundamental failing of Scotland, which neither controlled nor even benefited from her wealth, overshadows everything.

The sector has since been run down, with UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband’s hostility to the North Sea causing havoc in the past year. The vibrant Aberdeen displayed in archive footage is now a pale shadow of the time when it was “Europe’s Oil Capital”.

The loss of jobs is massive and the lost revenue to Scotland runs to trillions – not millions – of pounds. Workers can only look at Norway where safety requirements were always far more stringent. Scotland can only look at the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund and weep over what might have been.

There is still oil and gas there in the North Sea and it should be getting developed. Our communities and our economy requires that. But even if Rosebank and other fields proceed, we’ll lose out without the powers of an independent nation to ensure Scotland, and its people, benefit in both jobs and revenue.

Scanning the energy press last week, I came across a story on the offshore wind sector. There was a wee snippet, not even a big headline, disclosing that Danish multinational Orsted had sold its majority stake in an offshore wind farm in Scottish waters to a Norwegian company.

Was the Scottish Government informed? Did they even know it had happened? No development has yet commenced but it’s the principle.

These are our waters and this is our natural asset. Scotland should be getting wealth from the bounty off its shores. Our workers should be getting the jobs, our businesses the contracts, and our people the benefit of cheap and clean energy.

There is another similar thread of both tragedy and farce running through the fact that Scotland does not have its own energy company, though the SNP had promised one. Labour’s GB Energy is a brass plate on an anonymous office in Aberdeen, yet other countries’ state energy corporations remain to the fore.

When prime minister, Boris Johnson dubbed our land “the Saudi Arabia of wind”. All down the east coast, you can see development happening, from the city of Aberdeen and the towns of Angus and in the Moray and Forth firths and Caithness Bay. And that’s only for starters, with many more wind farms to come deeper out and further round all our coastline.

However, Equinor, which will operate Rosebank, if it proceeds – as it does others both in Scottish and Norwegian waters – is majority owned by the Norwegian government.

Orsted had its origins in the Danish state-owned company Dansk Naturgas A/S. Other state-owned enterprises also operate in both oil and gas and the renewables sector, whether from Sweden, France, China, Japan, the United Arab Emirates or others.

Lacking the powers of a normal country, things are done to us not by us. Decisions of profound impact are made over which we have no say, and the wealth and benefit goes elsewhere. Our workers as well as us all as a people pay the price.

The nation is losing wealth which should be being generated for the benefit of all.

Our workers may face fewer safety risks than before, but their rights are still limited. Employment law and even the minimum wage don’t apply outwith UK territorial waters, as workers in the renewable sector are discovering to their cost.

A North Sea tragedy is in danger of becoming a farce. It’s time for independence.

[This article was first published in The National on 01.09.2025]