LABOUR leadership pretender Wes Streeting came out fighting today for carbon fuel, the bond market and “progressive capitalism.”

The former health secretary reaffirmed that he will contest any leadership election triggered by Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham’s expected victory in the Makerfield by-election this week.

Mr Streeting, the Blairite candidate in any election, backed plans to drill for oil and gas in the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields in the North Sea.

He said he aimed to “protect the workers in oil and gas, who’ve seen words like ‘just transition’ translate into jobs for someone else, somewhere else. We should be working with the unions on this – not least on making sure that we’re building our clean power future here in Britain, not simply importing it from China.”

He denied that this would forfeit Britain’s “moral leadership” on climate change.

“The best example we can set is to show the world that net zero is compatible with a pro-growth agenda. The worst example would be losing support for the net zero agenda, handing the country to Nigel Farage, and allowing Reform to destroy the renewables industry,” Mr Streeting said.

Green Party deputy leader Rachel Millward said his “call to open up new drilling in the North Sea is environmentally reckless and economically illiterate.

“Rosebank alone contains enough fossil fuel to produce over 200 million tonnes of CO2 if burned – more than the combined annual emissions of 28 low-income countries.”

Uplift director Tess Khan said: “Politicians need to learn the lesson of the last five years – the UK’s dependence on fossil fuels is making a handful of oil and gas companies obscenely rich and the rest of us poorer, while driving inflation, harming the economy and altering our climate.

“Streeting would do better to listen to the millions who are sick of the energy giants loading costs onto the rest of us, and pay less attention to this profiteering industry and its proxies, like Tony Blair and Donald Trump.”

Mr Streeting also said Keir Starmer should quit Downing Street immediately following the result from Makerfield on Thursday.

The former Health Secretary resigned from cabinet after his own effort to force Sir Keir out after the May elections foundered for lack of support.

He trails far behind Mr Burnham in all surveys of the Labour membership. 

In his economic pitch outlined today, he sought to close the gap by championing appeasing the bond market and avoiding widespread nationalisation.

And in a Financial Times article, he backed “progressive capitalism” saying: “British capitalism suffers from a lack of competition.”