The new prime minister<\/a>, who is seeking to deviate from Sir Keir Starmer\u2019s deeply unpopular leadership<\/a>, told the US president that we \u201ccan\u2019t ignore\u201d the resources in the North Sea, during a phone call on his first day in office.<\/p>\n After the call, Mr Trump said Mr Burnham had told him he would \u201copen up North Sea oil\u201d, comments the former Manchester mayor was asked about during a visit to Barrow, in Cumbria. <\/p>\n \u201cI indicated in the phone call that we had a week last Monday that I would take a pragmatic approach when it comes to the North Sea, and that is my intention as we go forward from here,\u201d the prime minister said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a resource there. When people are struggling, we can\u2019t ignore that. Hence, me indicating that to the president.\u201d<\/p>\n The exchange secured the prime minister an early endorsement by Mr Tump and signalled a fresh start in the transatlantic partnership after relations with Sir Keir grew increasingly fractious over the Iran war.<\/p>\n But Labour\u2019s 2024 manifesto vowed not to issue North Sea licences and Mr Burnham previously promised to stand by commitments made in the manifesto that delivered a large majority for Labour. <\/p>\n Ed Miliband, who held the energy and net zero brief under Sir Keir Starmer and was a strong supporter of the election pledge, has now taken the foreign secretary role.<\/p>\n Mr Burnham appears now to have left the door open to change. His successor as energy secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, has said the manifesto was clear there is scope to exploit existing licences and that oil and gas are \u201cpart of the mix\u201d \u2013 but would not be drawn on whether there are plans to go further.<\/p>\n Mr Burnham\u2019s government is also facing calls from the energy sector to approve the Jackdaw gasfield east of Aberdeen and Rosebank oilfield west of Shetland – but campaigners have warned that doing so would break the Labour manifesto.<\/p>\n Consultations on the projects are due to run until August 10 and August 17 respectively, with the Offshore Petroleum Regulator for Environment and Decommissioning (Opred) due to make a recommendation to the UK Government after that.<\/p>\n Mr Trump had already talked up a change in policy that he anticipated under Mr Burnham before the former Greater Manchester mayor took office.<\/p>\n The US president, a vocal supporter of fossil fuels, has long railed against \u201cwindmills\u201d.<\/p>\n He lost a legal battle with the Scottish government to stop a wind turbine development visible from his Aberdeenshire golf course.<\/p>\n Referring to his conversation with Mr Burnham, Mr Trump said on Wednesday: \u201cWell, he did say one very good thing. He said he\u2019s going to open up North Sea oil.<\/p>\n \u201cIf he does that, you\u2019re going to be a wealthy country.\u201d<\/p>\n He went on: \u201cYou have one of the most valuable oil finds anywhere in the world, and if the United Kingdom would use it, they\u2019d be a wealthy country again. And I tell you what, I could not get Starmer to use it. It was incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n Green Party leader Zack Polanski warned the prime minister against further North Sea drilling. <\/p>\n \u201cAllowing new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea will worsen the climate breakdown putting more lives at risk and doing untold damage to our economy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not too late for Burnham to do the right thing and commit to leaving dangerous fossil fuels in the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":720499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-720498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=720498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/720499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Burnham](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/01KYSPA073F5184RV2VGV8MQG9.jpg\")
Burnham responded to questions about Trump\u2019s comments during a visit to Barrow (PA)<\/p>\n![\"Donald](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/2284615801...jpeg\")
Donald Trump and former prime minister Sir Keir Starmer clashed over the UK\u2019s energy policy (Getty)<\/p>\n![\"Jackup](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/719682b06e2dd10d555d78fa6a5de30aY29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNzg0OTYyNjA2-2.56992543.jpg\")
Jackup rigs, used in the North Sea oil and gas industry, are silhouetted against the sky at sunset over the Port of Dundee in the Firth of Tay, Dundee (Jane Barlow\/PA) (PA Archive)<\/p>\n