SNP rows back on North Sea drilling opposition

Scotland’s largest political party recognises that the Ukraine crisis has changed the game

The Scottish National Party (SNP) is retreating from its opposition to the UK government’s granting of licences for new oil and developments in the North Sea—most of them in Scottish waters—as the renewed focus on energy security continues to alter the political debate across Europe. The party had previously called for no more permits to be issued.     “If there is a real desire across Europe—which there is at this moment in time—to rid itself of oil from Russia under Putin, then we need to be cognisant of those needs,” the SNP’s Westminster energy spokesman, Stephen Flynn, told state broadcaster the BBC in response to information passed to it that the UK government may fast-track as many as