We must reserve judgment until the Confederation of British Industry’s extraordinary general meeting on Tuesday has taken place, but it is entirely possible that the supposed “crunch” vote on the organisation’s future will instead deliver a mushy message. The outcome could be confusing and open to interpretation.
Why? Well, since several high-profile members – the likes of NatWest, the John Lewis Partnership and Aviva – have resigned, there is a slightly self-selecting flavour to the electorate. It has also been noticeable in the days since the CBI published its “prospectus for change” last week that corporate waverers – companies that “paused” or suspended membership – have not been publicly clamouring to get back into the fold. Maybe some are waiting for the meeting to make a splash or have returned without fanfare. But it’s odd that the top letter-writers to the Times in defence of a 58-year-old British business organisation have been the UK subsidiaries of three foreign firms: Siemens of Germany and Microsoft and ExxonMobil of the US.
To change the script, the CBI really needs a few domestic FTSE 100 heavyweights to pipe up. Thus, even when the result of the vote lands, it may be hard to tell the difference between a ringing endorsement by loyalists and a show of general apathy by UK plc. This is an unusual poll. It is as much about who doesn’t vote as who does.
That is why, one suspects, the spotlight will quickly shift elsewhere. In the lobbying game, you’re only as good as your contacts. The government, as much as the CBI’s members, is likely to determine the organisation’s fate in the long run. Ministers have given the lobby group the cold shoulder for the past few months and until re-engagement happens – and on what terms, and when? – the status of a revived but smaller CBI will be unclear.
In that context, the creation by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) of its business council is – potentially – a significant move. As argued here previously, the BCC is the only alternative body capable of acting as business lobbyist-in-chief because the others (Make UK, the Institute of Directors and the Federation of Small Businesses) are either too small or too narrowly focused. The open questions were whether the BCC had an appetite to expand and the clout to attract high-profile names.
Answers are now clearer on both fronts. It was not a coincidence that the new internal council was launched on the eve of the CBI vote. And the presence of BP as a founding member – alongside Heathrow, hotels group IHG and Drax – will be noted as a signal that the BCC is serious about countering the caricature that it is primarily a regional and local outfit.
As one corporate affairs director at a FTSE 100 firm puts it: “We will be looking carefully at this. Martha Lane Fox [BCC president] is very well regarded and the BCC is clearly going for it. If BP is joining, that is good company to be in.”
The BCC’s presentation of its new council has naturally tried to concentrate on hard business issues, such as net zero, digital development and future of high streets, and the approach of a general election. But it is not hard to decipher the director general Shevaun Haviland’s pitch to “the nation’s largest corporates” about “a different kind of representation”. There is a competition here, or at least a decision for companies to make. Tuesday’s vote at the CBI is probably not the end of the story.
