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More companies and lobby groups will attend Labour’s annual conference than the Conservatives’, a reversal from 12 months ago, as businesses court the UK’s main opposition party ahead of a general election.
According to Financial Times calculations based on exhibitors listed in Labor handbooks over two years, 43 business groups have purchased exhibition space at Labor conferences in Liverpool, paying up to £16,000, compared with 16 last year. The number of participating charities and non-profit organizations more than doubled from 40 to 87.
In contrast, the number of stalls purchased by business groups and charities at the Conservative Party conference, which opens in Manchester on Sunday, increased slightly compared with 2022, from 26 to 28 and 24 to 30 respectively. .
An increase in the number of companies choosing to attend Labor conferences reflects growing efforts by businesses to connect with Sir Keir Starmer’s party to help influence its policy thinking and better understand what the party will do if it wins Regulatory changes.
It is also a sign of a two-year campaign by Starmer and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves to convince British companies that their party, which is far ahead of the Conservatives in opinion polls, will create a business-friendly environment. ’s charm offensive is starting to pay off.
The election will be held in January 2025, with both Labor and the Conservatives claiming to be the “business party”. A senior executive at a Big Four consultancy said there was “less teeth gnashing than you might think” from private equity groups at the prospect of a Labor government as the party seeks to allay concerns about big tax hikes.
Another business adviser said the atmosphere around this year’s Labor conference was in stark contrast to rallies under Starmer’s far-left predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, “when the exhibition area at Labour’s annual conference shrunk to essentially ‘ Friends of the Cuban Labor Party’, it takes 10 minutes to walk around.”
More than 100 companies are sponsoring events around the Liverpool conference, including aerospace group Airbus and technology companies Siemens and Amazon.
Property firms, which have generally spoken out against the government’s crackdown on rogue landlords and tougher building regulations following the Grenfell tragedy, are set to turn out in force in Liverpool. These include Thakeham, Vistry Group and the London Property Alliance, which sponsor and exhibit at both events.
Sir Craig Oliver, a partner at PR firm FGS Global and communications director to former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, said Reeves had launched an effective offensive against business over the past two years and was “absolutely ubiquitous” ” Talk to company leaders.
But Tory insiders insist their party remains the party of business, pointing out that tickets for two days of a Manchester conference aimed at small and medium-sized businesses, at £220 each, have been sold out, with dozens of groups on the waiting list.
They added that this year’s gathering of business dinners for 300 business people sold out at an unprecedented rate, with all tickets sold by the end of June.
Meanwhile, Labor has reduced entry fees to SME events from £400 in May to £75 this month, with 200 tickets sold so far.
Some 187 companies will take part in the Conservative Party’s “Working Day” campaign, which targets large groups such as Airbus, investment bank Goldman Sachs and steelmaker Liberty Steel, up from 137 last year.
The Conservatives said chief executives who had not attended the meeting before would attend, including Barclays’ CS Venkatakrishnan and property group Landsec’s Mark Allan.
But a senior communications executive who advises several clients on party conferences said he believed large institutions would not send chief executives to Conservative conferences as they once did.
He noted there was “a bit of general fatigue” about the government’s “anti-business policies”, including moves to roll back net zero commitments and reports that the HS2 rail project would be scaled back.
The boss of a major company said: “If you nailed me to the wall and asked me to go to a company, I would only go to Labour.”
Labor said: “At this year’s conference we will set out how a mission-driven Labor government will deliver economic growth across the country and give Britain a future back.”
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