The Labour party conference has not always been a hot ticket for company bosses. This year, after events in Manchester rounding off a chaotic period for business relations with the Conservatives, things are different.
As the party descends on Liverpool’s Albert Dock for its annual get-together this weekend, insiders say so many companies are clamouring to attend that many will not get in. Labour’s “business day” – at a conference the Financial Times is jokingly referring to as the “Liverpool Davos” – has twice as many firms involved as last year , with Goldman Sachs, Boeing and Amazon sponsoring events, and is still oversubscribed.
“We could probably sell it out all over again to be honest – we have a waiting list as long as the attendees,” says Jonathan Reynolds, the shadow business secretary.
“We can’t get rooms big enough to hold the events. But that’s a problem we’ll take. Genuinely people see us as the better option compared with a fifth Tory term. They see the risks to economic stability and their own businesses it would have.”
Before the Tory conference in Manchester this week Labour was almost 20 points ahead in opinion polls, with the party on course for power after more than a decade in opposition. After cancelling the HS2 high-speed rail line from Birmingham to Manchester in his Tory conference speech, Rishi Sunak has drawn an angry response from industry – having already upset bosses just weeks earlier by watering down the UK’s net zero commitments.
On the flip side, Keir Starmer appearing on platforms with Tony Blair has left a marked impression on company bosses, senior industry figures say, amid hopes in the City of London for a more serious approach to government.
On the sidelines of the Tory bash, lobbyists for big hedge funds, banks and private equity spoke highly of Labour’s business team – Reynolds and the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves – and told a Sun journalist they could not get a seat at a Labour business dinner because it was so highly in demand.
Paul Drechsler, the chair of the International Chamber of Commerce, is among executives heading to Liverpool after a disappointing trip to Manchester. He says there was a feeling at the Tory event of a party out of control, “totally preoccupied with their own internal machinations”.
“That’s not been good for the economy,” says Drechsler, a former president of the CBI lobby group who was once “skills tsar” for David Cameron. “The one thing self-evident in Manchester is there isn’t a Conservative party left in this country: there is a collection of parties riding on the back of their funding and banner, with totally different views on how the country should be run – from ‘bankrupt it as quickly as possible’ to ‘bankrupt it as slowly as possible’.”
For many bosses the 2016 Brexit referendum fired a starting gun on a Tory transformation from the party of business to “fuck business”, with the resulting political and economic instability hitting business investment in Britain.
However, Labour was hardly a natural alternative. Industry bosses lobbied hard against Jeremy Corbyn’s plans for higher business taxes and renationalisation before the 2019 election. Starmer has mostly ditched them, while positioning Labour as “pro-business, pro-worker”. But there is scope for tension, as the tack to the centre unsettles his leftwing MPs and trade union backers.
The trio holding the keys on business policy – Starmer, Reeves and Reynolds – have pushed Labour’s safety-first approach while the Tories implode.
Several policies have been watered down, aiming to showcase economic credibility, including Reeves rowing back on plans for £28bn of borrowing to invest in green jobs and industry. However, Starmer has been warned too much caution could damage Labour’s prospects at the next election.
Reynolds says the main pitch to business is Labour’s newfound internal stability, compared with Tory infighting and chop-change approach to politics. But there are City-friendly policies, too, such as a relaunched industrial strategy, reforms to business rates and the apprenticeship levy, and “improvements” to UK-EU relations.
Reynolds has been on a breakfast-time charm campaign, meeting all but a handful of the FTSE 250 group of firms listed on the London stock market. “The prawn cocktail offensive was in the past. It’s definitely more pastry-based engagement these days,” says one insider.
Recent meetings have included BlackRock, Goldman Sachs and Toyota. Bosses making the trip to Liverpool will include the chief executives of Deliveroo, Taylor Wimpey and the insurer Lloyd’s of London, while there will be a handful of private dinners for Labour’s top brass with company bosses and a business forum followed by a sold-out drinks reception hosted by Bloomberg.
Given the polling lead, there is naturally more interest in meeting the potential next government. But Hamish Sandison – the chair of the party’s affiliated business membership group, Labour Business – says the world of industry is changing too. In an age when some Tories rail against the growth of “woke capitalism”, he argues Labour is in tune with the business mainstream.
“The Tories say they’re the party of business but it’s all hedge funds … They are still a party of business – but only a certain part. Labour aspires to be a party for all businesses.”
Demonstrating internal change has not just opened doors in the City, but also the chequebooks of super-rich donors who largely kept away during Corbyn’s leadership. The party has built a sizeable pre-election war chest in recent months, raising almost £9m from individuals and companies – a more than sixfold the total during the 2019 election year.
Michael Levy, the chief fundraiser under Blair, has returned to help. “There has absolutely been a complete sea change,” Lord Levy says, suggesting donors see Starmer as a “grownup with maturity” and Reeves as an experienced former Bank of England economist.
“They say to me: ‘What’s happened to our country?’ They’re upset, confused and really just unhappy. They want change.”
The prominent financier Stuart Roden, best known for his time as chair of the London hedge fund Lansdowne Partners, has donated £180,000, while the former boss of Autoglass Gary Lubner has pledged up to £5m to help Labour build its “capacity and capability” before the next general election. Sir Victor Blank, the chair of Lloyds TSB during the 2008 financial crisis, is donating again, having previously given during the New Labour and Miliband eras.
The funds have helped offset a £3m drop in income from members, after a sharp decline in grassroots involvement since Corbyn’s departure, and counterbalance the weight of support from trade union funding. “Working with them [unions] is one thing, to be totally fiscally dependent on them is another,” says Levy.
Nicknamed “Lord Cashpoint” in the media, Levy helped raise more than £100m for Labour between 1994 and 2007 – but not without controversy. He was arrested and questioned three times in the “cash for honours” scandal of the early 2000s. No charges were made against him.
Close relations with wealthy donors are not always comfortable on the left. Diane Abbott MP, a close Corbyn ally who had the Labour whip suspended this year, has criticised the party’s new leadership for “reverting to the worst practices of New Labour”, tweeting: “Has it occurred to Starmer what those big corporate donors want?”
Nick Razey, a former Cable & Wireless executive donating large sums to Labour, says the the biggest wish is to remove the Tories from power. “I’m a capitalist obviously. I’ve made money out of business, but I’m a consistent Labour supporter,” he says.
“I was actually giving money to charities and rewilding projects and so on, but it occurred to me my money would be better spent on getting Labour elected. For every £1 you give to charity, a decent government with proper taxation could do 100 times that.”
