Can Britain's Labour win the business vote with its 'Prawn cocktail 2.0' campaign?

The opposition party may be well ahead in the polls - but they are taking nothing for granted with one influential constituency

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer on a visit to the Workshed Foundry in Swindon, Wiltshire. PA

A keen audience cranes forward when Rachel Reeves, the frontwoman for the opposition Labour Party's economy team, enters the networking suites of UK executives and says "we want Britain to be the best place to start and grow a business".

It is a message that is well received. A recent study by the consultancy Headland found that more than four fifths of voters reacted positively to Labour’s "pro worker, pro business" slogan.

Britain's Labour Party and leading figures of the UK's business community have always struggled to size each other up. It is a dance that is now in overdrive as the party holds a double-digit poll lead just a year or so before the next election.

Back in December, at what was described as Labour's biggest business event yet, hundreds of the UK's leading business figures gathered to hear the party's leader, Keir Starmer, announce that Labour was "back in business".

Mr Starmer and Ms Reeves are on a charm offensive with business that is no small and casual flirtation on the part of the Labour Party. It is a reprise of the 1990s, when a series of networking breakfasts, lunches, dinners and other events involving senior Labour Party politicians and the chief executives of some of the UK's leading companies became known as the prawn cocktail offensive.

That move was part of the lead-up to the general election of 1997, which was followed by 13 years of Labour government.

Prawn cocktail 2.0

The big question is this: will the current charm offensive, or 'Prawn cocktail 2.0' as some have labelled it, help Labour to another landslide victory?

At last year's Confederation of British Industry (CBI) conference, Mr Starmer said Labour was "not just a pro-business party, but a party that is proud of being pro-business".

"That respects the contribution profit makes to jobs, growth and our tax base, that gets that working people want success as well as support, understands that backing private enterprise is the only way Britain pays its way in the world," he added.

It's a line that Labour has been pushing for some time and will push it harder the closer an election comes. The party wants to press home what it sees as the current advantage it has over the ruling Conservatives – the party that has dropped the ball on the economy and is ruining its own relationship with UK business.

It's thought that senior Labour figures are now in regular contact with some of the UK's leading FTSE-100 listed companies.

It's a far cry from the situation when former Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was at the helm. Mr Corbyn was never able to shake the perception that he was anti-business, despite telling the CBI conference in 2019 that it was "complete nonsense".

Change of mood music

The left-wing Fabian Society think tank, which has strong links to the Labour leadership, argues that given the years of business chaos under the Conservatives since Brexit, companies wanted to align themselves with Mr Starmer’s party.

Secretary General Andrew Harrup told The National that the “mood music has massively changed”, with many businesses wanting to engage with Labour.

“This is partly because they follow winners, but they also want to build relationships with whoever is most likely to form the next government, and they think that's Labour. But I think it's also because they're utterly sick of the Conservatives.

“Brexit was opposed by most big British businesses, but ever since then you just have this complete dysfunctionality and failure of government, which is one of the main reasons business investment is so low.”

He added that the apparent breakfasts, lunches and dinners with Mr Starmer “should make the Conservatives worried”.

But it was also unsurprising given the policies of Boris Johnson – who was noted for using an expletive about businesses, and the haphazard policies under former prime minister Liz Truss.

“Business hasn't been able to invest and hasn’t had the direction that it needs,” Mr Harrup said. “Big business is not hankering after tax cuts and massive regulatory changes, they just want certainty.”

The charm offensive is starting to pay significant dividends for the Labour Party, according to Paul Drechsler, the chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce.

"Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves and Jonathan Reynolds [shadow business secretary] are meeting with senior business people every single week and it's gone from six months ago when they might have sat hoping somebody would drop by to the stage at the moment, where they have more business people that want to speak to them than they have capacity to do so," he told The National.

Lansons, the communications and reputation management consultancy, has been working closely with Ms Reeves over the past year.

"It was a struggle to get people interested a year ago, but now people are desperate to meet with Labour, because people realise they are now serious opposition and pretty much the government-in-waiting," Mitchell Cohen, deputy head of public affairs at Lansons, told The National.

"And everyone was super impressed with Rachel Reeves – she was very across the detail, very open to listening and working with the financial services sector.

"But across the entire shadow cabinet, what we're seeing is a real engagement with business."

Getting support from business is a key factor in changing the perception of Labour and its brand but there are signs it has headway to make. The Headland survey also found that 30 per cent feel the party is more business-friendly since Mr Starmer took over, which means 70 per cent don't think it is, indicating that Labour still has much to do.

"Keir's got to walk the tightrope of keeping his party happy, especially the left of his party, following the ousting of Jeremy Corbyn, while also appealing to the City, because he knows that they've got to look like a new Labour Party," Mr Cohen told The National.

Labour seems to be hanging on to its solid lead in the polls. An Ipsos poll at the beginning of March put Labour on 51 per cent and the Conservatives on 25 per cent, whereas a poll last weekend by the data and marketing company Savanta, had Labour on 45 per cent and the Conservatives on 29 per cent.

Nonetheless, while overall Labour is hanging on to a solid lead in the polls, when it comes to the economy there are some doubters. Headland's figures show Labour has only a seven percentage point advantage when voters were asked about its potential handling of the economy and there were many who ticked the "don't know" box.

Some analysts say the "don't know" box is really the "don't really know Mr Starmer" box.

"It is a big departure from Labour under Corbyn," Chris Hopkins of Savanta told The National.

"I think an increased sense of pragmatism and professionalism is receptive not only to the public, but also to business.

"Mr Starmer is trying to do as much as he can to distance himself from Corbyn's Labour and I'm sure, naturally, business will be more receptive to that because the party is willing to engage with them," Mr Hopkins added.

Mr Harrup mentioned that Labour was also much less trusted by industry when under former far-left leader Mr Corbyn. “There were some sensible pro-business policies under Corbyn but they got drowned out by the lack of credibility in the overall package,” he said.

Under Mr Starmer, the party would have a “positive engaged relationship with big international businesses” but it also would not be “a pushover either”.

“Keir Starmer’s Labour party is much more pragmatic when it comes to the role of the private sector. They may well promote nationalisation in some cases, like the railways, but it isn't an ideological nature.” Mr Harrup added.

Not all a bed of roses

But not all agree that Labour's pawn cocktail 2.0 charm offensive is really changing the mood.

Labour has yet to “really bang the drum” for Britain being open to big international business investment in the manner that Tony Blair did, said Alan Mendoza, from the right-wing Henry Jackson Society think tank.

“They're going to have to show that they've junked the ideology of Jeremy Corbyn and certainly from earlier than that.

“Labour does appear to have a more centrist approach, because you can't imagine for one minute that Ed Miliband or Jeremy Corbyn would have been very interested in this approach to business,” Dr Mendoza said.

Labour may also be approaching businesses for party funding to “shake off” its reliance on trade union cash, he added.

But the party had yet to substantially roll out its business policies, such as a pledge to cut corporation tax back to 19 per cent, after its recent rise to 25 per cent under the Conservatives.

“Keir Starmer is really going to have to convince the business community that Labour means business, but they're playing a safe game now and that probably won't be enough to convince the business community.”

The Conservatives also had the in-built advantage of Rishi Sunak’s business skills and experience, the think tank’s director said. “Unlike his two predecessors this prime minister is business-minded and his technocratic style shows him as efficient and productive, which is a very business-like way to carry out government.”

Nonetheless, Mr Hopkins attended the Labour Party conference in Liverpool last autumn and immediately noted a change in tone regarding the attitude towards business.

"It felt like it was a party preparing for government, rather than a party preparing to be campaigning all the time," he told The National.

"And I think ultimately that's what business is looking for – it's looking to influence governments; it's not looking to influence opposition parties."

Beating a path to Labour's door

Influencing governments is the business side of the dance. Until relatively recently, many business leaders felt there was little point in engaging with a Labour Party that didn't look electable or was ideologically at odds with capitalism and its companies.

But now, there's a feeling in the business community that the Conservatives are not engaging and are too caught up in their own internal machinations.

"We went from a Conservative government that saw itself as the party of business, engaged with business, listened to business all the time, and they've stopped doing that," Mr Drechsler told The National.

"They're preoccupied with their own internal politics and factions."

John McTernan, who served as Tony Blair’s director of political operations, agrees.

The political strategist, who was also a special adviser to Gordon Brown’s government, told The National that business leaders are increasingly open to lending an ear to the Labour leader and Ms Reeves because they are “making no real progress in engaging with the Tory party”.

“Businesses are desperate to speak to the Labour Party because they think it’s likely that Labour will be the next government,” he said. “Businesses are beating a path to Labour’s door.

“They want to know that when Labour says it will do something, that it will get done. Then they can look at infrastructure and investment.

“They want to see a stable framework for 10 years and a stable strategy for economic development and investment."

Mr McTernan added that companies will be looking to Ms Reeves, who worked as an economist at the Bank of England before entering politics, for a sound plan to give them confidence in the medium and long-term.

It could be another 18 months until the next general election in Britain. Ask any business person what they'd like in the next 18 months, or at any time really, and the answer will be stability. The political party that can deliver that is the one that UK business will choose to dance with.