Rosebank Approval Could Breach UK's Own West Bank Sanctions, Starmer Warned

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has been formally warned that approving Rosebank, Britain's largest untapped oil field, could contravene the government's own sanctions regime targeting illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

The warning centres on Delek Group, the Israeli conglomerate that controls Ithaca Energy, the London-listed FTSE 100 company holding a 20% stake in the Shetland field. Last year, the United Nations placed Delek Group in a database of companies that allegedly provide services or utilities supporting settlements in occupied Palestinian territories.

The political collision is direct. Last month, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced UK sanctions against companies and individuals who provide services such as infrastructure to settlement expansion, alongside a ban on imports of goods from illegal settlements. Campaigners now want to know whether those measures will apply to a company with a material stake in a flagship British energy project.

The letters

Two separate letters have landed on ministers' desks. The campaign group Uplift — whose 2023 legal challenge against Rosebank forced the courts to overturn the project's original approval and triggered the ongoing delay — helped organise a letter to Deputy Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Miliband, signed by campaigners from Stop Rosebank and Greenpeace. The letter, seen by BBC News, asks the government to clarify whether Delek will fall foul of the sanctions announced last month.

Uplift pressed Burnham to "confirm, unequivocally, whether Delek will be caught by the new planned measures." The campaigners added: "If it is not, please explain how that is consistent with the government's stated intent to sanction those who finance or facilitate illegal settlements?"

Green Party leader Zack Polanski wrote separately to Miliband, asking what steps the government would take to ensure revenue from UK oil and gas production did not finance illegal settlements.

"Rosebank is a test of whether Labour's proposed sanctions regime is fit for purpose," Polanski said. "Companies blacklisted by the UN for operating in the illegal settlements should not be financed by oil and gas revenues from the North Sea."

The companies push back

Delek Group denies the basis of the UN listing. A company spokesman told the Daily Telegraph it no longer had any involvement in Israeli settlements and was wrongly included in the database. "Delek Group has been wrongly included in the UN database," the spokesman said. "Together with our legal advisers, we intend to formally challenge this and request the immediate removal of our name from the UN database."

Ithaca Energy, for its part, stressed its British credentials. A spokesperson told the BBC: "Ithaca Energy is a London Stock Exchange listed company which is a member of the FTSE 100, and which is governed by the highest standards of corporate governance. Ithaca is one of the biggest investors in the North Sea and Scotland, is a responsible employer and is a major contributor to both the UK Treasury through tax payments and to the UK's energy security."

The Foreign Office declined to comment.

A decision with three-way pressure

The final call on Rosebank — and on the Jackdaw gas field east of Aberdeen — now sits with Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh. The previous Conservative government approved Rosebank in 2023, but campaigners including Uplift successfully challenged that decision in court. The outcome will be read as an early signal of Burnham's wider posture on oil and gas; he has spoken repeatedly of the need for a "flexible" approach and is believed to favour drilling more where licences already exist in the North Sea.

Miliband was widely thought to have opposed Rosebank when he served as Starmer's energy secretary, adding an internal Labour dimension to the decision.

A transatlantic layer compounds the domestic politics. President Donald Trump has placed pressure on successive UK prime ministers to drill more in the North Sea. While Downing Street is relieved that Trump has not lashed out at the government's recent West Bank sanctions, his administration has said the US will not follow the same course of action.

Tessa Khan, executive director at Uplift, framed the stakes bluntly: "not one penny of North Sea oil profits" should go to a company which "itself now risks being sanctioned by the UK."

The wider context

Israel has built roughly 160 settlements housing 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem during the 1967 Middle East war. An estimated 3.3 million Palestinians live alongside them. Settlements are illegal under international law, and violence towards Palestinians by settlers has risen in recent months. Israel has criticised the UK sanctions, accusing the government of "anti-Israel policies."

The Rosebank decision now forces the government to reconcile three competing commitments: its climate positioning, its stated willingness to maximise existing North Sea production, and a sanctions regime announced with fanfare just last month. Whichever way Fahnbulleh rules, the treatment of Delek's 20% stake will test whether the West Bank sanctions carry commercial teeth at home.