Last week, Labour failed to make inroads in the north-east of Scotland, despite huge gains throughout the Central Belt.
From the north-east, you will be travelling many miles before you find a constituency with a Labour MP.
There is no doubt that this is because of the Labour Party’s blatant hostility to our oil and gas industry.
Over the election campaign, it became clearer and clearer that a Labour government would present a direct threat to jobs in the northeast of Scotland.
Just recently, Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce warned that under Labour we could see around 100,000 job losses in the oil and gas sector.
The banning of new oil and gas licences will have a devastating impact on the local economy and will only lead to more imports from around the world.
Unite the Union was clear in the run-up to the election that Labour did not have a plan for transitioning the thousands of oil and gas jobs to renewables.
Without this plan, we face an unjust transition and billions of lost investment from the energy companies that need income from traditional energy sources to reinvest into renewables.
At the core of the Labour Party’s energy policy was the creation of a new public entity called GB Energy.
We still do not know what it will do or where it will be based.
They must now come clean to tell us if this will be based in Europe’s energy capital or in the Central Belt to appease their voter base.
Will it create new jobs for north-east workers, or just desk jobs in Glasgow?
As former leader of Aberdeen City Council, I would echo the calls of the current leaders that this should be based in Aberdeen to make the most of our skills, expertise, knowledge and depth of understanding of this foremost Scottish industry.
The resurgence of Labour in Scotland was at the expense of the SNP which put dividing our country front and centre of their manifesto, an offering that the people of Scotland have firmly, robustly, and loudly rejected just as they did ten years ago.
For the last 17 years, the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party has been at the forefront of the fight against the SNP.
Now we must be at the heart of the opposition to a Labour government.
The election last week told us that people wanted change and change brought a new government in Westminster.
In Scotland, after 17 years of an SNP government, people also want change and the opportunity to bring about that change will be the Holyrood election in 2026.
In the coming years, the Scottish Conservatives must craft an offering to the people of Scotland who want to see a sound, pragmatic, centreright alternative.
This article was originally published in the Press & Journal.
