Trump says UK PM will open North Sea oil, party denies

U.S. President Donald Trump has publicly claimed that incoming British Prime Minister Andy Burnham will fully open the North Sea for oil and gas drilling, a statement that has been immediately contradicted by senior officials in Burnham's party. Trump made the assertion in a post on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, July 19, 2026, just hours before Burnham was scheduled to enter Downing Street on Monday.

In his post, Trump wrote that "the People of Aberdeen, in Scotland, are dancing in the streets" because Burnham had "stated that he will be opening up, all the way, the invaluable North Sea Oil!" He described the North Sea as one of the greatest sources of oil with hundreds of years of capacity left and claimed further extraction would transform the United Kingdom from a "Poverty Stricken Disaster" into "one of the Richest Countries anywhere in the World." The U.S. president also suggested the UK would remove "old and horrible looking windmills" from near Aberdeen.

However, Labour's deputy leader, Lucy Powell, directly addressed the speculation on Sunday, stating that Burnham would adhere to the party's manifesto commitments. The Labour Party's 2024 manifesto explicitly...