In a little under two weeks, the people of Aberdeen South will be given a choice. They can choose to elect another Scottish National Party MP hellbent on destroying their jobs and livelihoods. Or they can vote for a Conservative Party determined to back British energy, get Aberdeen drilling, and bring oil and gas jobs back to Scotland’s North-East coast.

On Friday, I travelled up to Aberdeen for my latest visit as leader. If you spend any time in this city, you can’t fail to appreciate how much Scotland’s oil and gas industry means to its people.

The industry is the economic lifeblood of the North East. It puts food on families’ plates, provides opportunities for young people and drives the local economy.

However, each time I visit, I also sense that things are not as they should be. The crushing windfall tax and Labour’s ban on new drilling, backed by the SNP, is doing serious harm to Aberdeen.

The oil and gas industry is shedding 1,000 jobs a month on average, most of which are being lost from places like Aberdeen.

This self-inflicted agony is hollowing out communities and making our country poorer. Thanks to the utter madness of the SNP and Labour, Britain is turning the taps off on our own oil and gas production just at a time when we need it most.

As fuel prices around the world spike, the Labour government in Westminster has made such a mess of our economy that it is now choosing to buy oil and gas from Russia, instead of drilling it from our own oil and gas fields in the North Sea.

It is a repugnant decision that reverses years of solid support for Ukraine under the Conservatives.

Kemi Badenoch visited the Granite City ahead of campaigning in the Aberdeen South by-election

New research from the University of Aberdeen this week shows that there are 4.7billion barrels-worth of oil and gas in the West of Shetland area of the North Sea alone.

This includes the Rosebank oil field, which both the SNP and Labour have conspired to stop us exploiting. Those two parties are choosing to leave our own resources untapped, while funding despotic regimes around the world who now hold us over a barrel.

Of course Britain should have a plan to transition to green energy.

As Conservatives, we believe in conserving our natural environment, and it’s true that some of that investment will bring new jobs to places like Aberdeen.

But the idea that it’s going to happen overnight is a complete fantasy. Even when we do get to the point of producing enough energy through renewables, oil and gas will always make up part of our energy mix.

I have been clear: Britain must maximise the use of our own domestic oil and gas supply. This is just common sense.

It is good for our energy security, for our economic security and our national security. Instead, we are being led by people in Holyrood and Westminster more interested in ideological pet projects than real people’s lives. 

They don’t seem to care that their actions are taking a wrecking ball to the Scottish economy and leaving Britain vulnerable to international price shocks.

The Conservatives are the only party fighting to save Scotland’s oil and gas industry. Our plan would see the end of the ban on new oil and gas licences, and total scrapping of the windfall tax strangling UK energy production.

The measures are part of a wider plan to radically bring down the cost of energy in this country, a cost that we know is holding our industry back.

British businesses are paying the highest rate for electricity anywhere in the developed work, and as a result they can’t compete.

The Conservative leader said the crushing windfall tax and Labour’s ban on new drilling, which is backed by the SNP, is doing serious harm to Aberdeen

Jobs are being lost in every corner of this land as our high tax, low energy governments in Westminster and Holyrood slowly squeeze every last drop of industry out of this country. We have to stop them before it’s too late. If you want to see that happen, then send a message to John Swinney and Keir Starmer on June 18.

A vote for the Conservatives is a vote telling them their war on domestic oil and gas must end.

There’s only one candidate who can beat the Scottish Nationalists in Aberdeen South, and that’s Douglas Lumsden.

A vote for any other party risks the Nationalists winning by default.

And I promise you this: Douglas, who worked in the oil and gas industry, will fight for your jobs and economic future, day in day out.

He won’t waste a minute on Left-wing hobby horses or scheming to break the United Kingdom apart.

He is the Member of Parliament the people of Aberdeen South deserve, and, I hope, the one they’re soon going to have.

Let’s get him to Parliament, get Aberdeen drilling, and get Scotland’s economy working again.