Allies for delivery: Rebuilding faith in Scottish politics via the North Sea

Scottish politics is in flux. 

The minority administration has recently lost an emblematic by-election, Labour has a new prime minister after months of internal bickering, and both Reform and the Conservatives are shifting further to the right. All of this means precious time will be lost, with a high chance that elites will drift further into a polarised – and polarising – debate about net zero, which could quickly become a story about jobs, bills and decline.

We argue in this paper that the North Sea is where the current parliament’s central question becomes unavoidable. Can Scottish politicians still build enough of a consensus to deliver meaningful change for disillusioned voters? The answer will not come from rhetorical moderation or from a false promise that the basin can be held steady. It will come from a bargain that voters can understand: climate ambition alongside economic realism. That means making sure the North East and wider Scotland benefit from the transition; reducing oil and gas without abandoning workers; putting jobs and household bills at the centre of renewables and clean industry; and supporting the Greens’ pressure on pace, but with wider public consent on cost, security and place. 

This is the honest approach to the transition: moving away from oil and gas while protecting jobs, investing in exposed places, and maintaining energy security as production and demand fall. It rejects both an accelerated exit that treats communities as collateral damage, and a misleading defence of the status quo.

The polling does not reveal a public looking for delay or denial. It shows a public willing to consent to transition when it is tied to bills, jobs, security and visible investment in affected places. These findings should not be read as a mandate to pretend that the decline of North Sea oil and gas can be avoided.

Summary

1. Scottish politics is fragmenting, not realigning. The SNP remains the governing party but fell short of the majority it wanted; Labour failed to become the obvious alternative; Reform entered Holyrood as a serious force; the Greens strengthened; the Conservatives diminished; and turnout fell. This is not a clean transfer of authority from one bloc to another, but the dispersal of trust.
2. The centre is being hollowed out by distrust and non-delivery. Voters feel politics no longer speaks to their everyday reality. Low trust produces low turnout; low turnout rewards sharper populist politics; and sharper politics risks pushing mainstream parties further away from the material concerns voters raise first: bills, jobs, services, housing and the cost of living.
3. Voters are “scunnered” but not disengaged from wanting change. Public First’s focus groups show voters describing insecure work, home insecurity, weak services and a feeling that Scotland is in “free fall”. But low expectations are not the same as no expectations: voters still want delivery, but no longer assume any party will provide it.
4. Trust in political delivery is dangerously low. In our polling, Scottish voters were more likely to describe Scottish politicians as ineffective than effective, incompetent than competent, and “looking out for themselves” rather than “looking out for people like me”. Even the SNP, the most trusted party on delivery, is only trusted or somewhat trusted by 43 per cent to deliver its promises.
5. The SNP’s election success is therefore hollow unless it becomes a delivery mandate. The SNP’s continued dominance should not be mistaken for deep public confidence. It reflects voters’ even lower confidence in the alternatives. If the SNP cannot turn this parliament into proof of practical delivery, its broad church will become even harder to sustain.
6. A majority constituency for practical politics still exists. Cost of living is the dominant issue, selected by 70 per cent of Scottish adults, followed by the NHS at 48 per cent, immigration at 37 per cent and the economy at 36 per cent. This shows that the centre ground is not ideological moderation for its own sake but material politics focussed on bills, services, work and security.
7. Party tribes show strong divisions on immigration and independence but clear commonalities remain. Reform voters are more likely than others to prioritise immigration at the next election (they are the only group for whom cost of living is not the top priority). Conservatives are more likely than others to prioritise the economy. SNP voters are outliers in the priority they give to independence. Liberal Democrats are the most likely to prioritise the NHS. None of these are surprising, nor do they obscure key areas of agreement about the issues facing the country.  
8. Shared views on independence make the Greens the best bet for the SNP – but building “delivery alliances” with the rest of the progressive bloc is worth the effort. The SNP has the first opportunity to rebuild the middle ground because it remains the governing party and can assemble issue-by-issue majorities. The Greens are the most promising partner due to their shared views on independence. However, finding tactical alliances with Labour and the Liberal Democrats demonstrates that Holyrood can be effective while also helping to build bridges with the Westminster government, whose support will be required on key topics.
9. Given the array of allies available, practical delivery of climate action is a promising area for collaboration. The current Scottish government has the ability to build a broad governing consensus around practical delivery on key issues such as lowering bills, employment opportunities (particularly through the energy transition), and improvements to public services. Action on climate can help deliver this by strengthening and securing energy supplies, and generating new revenue streams as legacy assets go offline.
10. The North Sea is the sharpest test of a managed energy transition. The transition is not a choice between net zero and jobs; it is a test of whether politics can tell the truth about economic change. North Sea oil and gas is already in structural decline, and new licences can, at most, slow the pace of that decline. If climate policy becomes the scapegoat for that structural transition, voters will be offered false reassurance while the practical work of building the next economy is delayed.
11. The North East is therefore a key demonstrator of practical government. Holyrood cannot freeze the North Sea in time. While competence for legacy oil and gas management sits in Westminster, the task for Scottish government and Holyrood is to support the North East’s next economic phase: protecting workers; transferring offshore skills; securing local benefit from ScotWind; investing in ports, colleges and supply chains; and ensuring that communities see new jobs before old ones disappear.
12. Voters support climate action and renewables, but they do not trust transition as an abstract promise. Support depends on lower bills, secure work, energy security, and visible investment in affected places. The opportunity is to move the debate out of a misleading and unhelpful “net zero versus North Sea” frame and into a delivery agenda that parties across Holyrood can support.