Labour business conference with Reeves and Reynolds postponed following low demand
Labour has put its £5,000-a-ticket business conference with planned appearances from Rachel Reeves and Jonathan Reynolds on ice, with the Financial Times reporting low demand for the enterprise event.
Invitations to the event, seen by the FT, had touted a “first of its kind” agenda which would give industry figures a “unique opportunity to engage with Labour’s plan to kick-start economic growth”.
Industry figures told the salmon pink broadsheet that the knock on effect of a reduction in public affairs budgets had led to firms pulling out of the event.
The conference, which would have taken place on 23 June, was pitched as an effort to win back the support of business figures who gave Labour the benefit of the doubt at last year’s General Election.
A Labour Party spokesperson said: “The Labour party regularly engages with a wide range of stakeholders and events are frequently scheduled throughout the year which receive a high level of interest.”
Ahead of the July 2024 poll, Starmer’s party boasted the backing of 120 business chiefs – but attitudes towards the government have soured following the October Budget’s enterprise tax hikes and employment rights legislation.
Labour’s chequered conference record
For all of the language of the event as an unprecedented bridge between the government and business, this postponement is the latest Labour business event gone awry.
Back in March, a £1,500-a-head event with the Chancellor in Merseyside was canned without explanation.
And in September – just weeks after coming to power – the Party hosted a shambolic ‘business day’, notoriously headlined by a virtual Reeves via video link.
That £3,000-a-head event sparked requests for refunds, with one attendee complaining of “made to queue in a bleak corridor for a drinks reception where there was no access to ministers”, according to Morning Wire columnist Eliot Wilson.
Wilson said of the event at the time: “Partly there has been a mismatch of expectations. Labour ministers, flushed with the excitement of office, realise they are no longer supplicants but in some sense patrons when they engage with the private sector.”